SEMINAR: Political Science and International Relations Seminar

Incel is an international online movement of ‘involuntary celibate’ men. In recent years, sexually and socially frustrated Incels have committed terrorist attacks, killing strangers of both sexes in North America. In this seminar we provocatively advocate a securitisation strategy against the threat of violent extremism posed by Incel. We are sympathetic to critiques of securitisation as a concept and a practice. However, we argue that considering Incel through a securitisation framework is a useful exercise. It opens doors to a coherent, encompassing and sorely needed policy response to both Incel itself and the misogynistic ideologies that have sustained other forms of gendered violence not hitherto deemed “universal” enough to warrant large-scale interventions. Elevating the response to Incel above everyday politics allows us to address the possible policy responses to gender-based violence as a form of violent extremism. The process of reviewing the likely successful policy responses to Incel also shines a critical light on the problematic nature of other securitisation efforts, while revealing that the best response to state security is to try to understand and include the antagonised other before radicalisation occurs.