Constructing “violence-affirming extremism”: a Swedish social problem trajectory

ABSTRACT Violent extremism has internationally become an established and highly prioritised social problem. While there is extensive and ongoing international diffusion and coordination, there are national specificities in terms of meanings conferred to this social problem and to the processes of its establishment in the public sphere. In this article, the trajectory of the Swedish notion of “violence-affirming extremism” is studied through an analysis of the coverage of “extremism” in national media from 1995 to 2019. It is argued that the introduction of the term “violence-affirming extremism” constituted a novel social problem frame established and institutionalised during the period 2008–2019. This process was driven to a large extent by terrorist events domestically and abroad, instilling a sense of drama and urgency. Whereas the new frame merged Islamist, left-wing and right-wing extremism as part of the same phenomenon, there were also differences in terms of perceived causes and solutions. Islamist extremism received the majority of mentions and was associated with the highest proportion of control-oriented solutions, such as legislation, policing and surveillance. These types of solutions remained salient throughout the latter part of the period, while other solution types appeared to lose momentum as the problem became institutionalised.