This dissertation investigates the pathways leading to violent extremism, participation in violence, and judicial responses to terrorism. By comparing individuals who joined extremist groups with those who shared similar beliefs and backgrounds but did not engage in violence, the study identifies key differentiating factors. Interviews with former members of the Red Brigades and other major leftist extremist organizations active in 1970s Italy, as well as potential recruits, coupled with testimonies from sensitive archival documents, reveal that exposure to critical moments can trigger a reconsideration of normative values. When the perception of injustice is high and the fear of violence is low, this reconsideration can lead to extremism. The research further proposes that militants' participation in violence is influenced by extra-group factors, such as isolation from family, and intra-group factors, such as violence committed by extremist organizations. Reviewing over 50,000 sensitive documents from various Italian State Archives enabled the creation of an original dataset and a Large-N analysis. The results indicate that density of social networks deter initial engagement in criminal activities and that there is a linear correlation between militants’ violence engagement and the violence inflicted by terrorist organizations across Italy, regardless of ideological stance. Finally, judicial responses to terrorism are examined to understand how judges' evaluations of group violence and individual crimes influence sentences. Interviews with jurists and statistical analysis of original data support these findings. Jurists indirectly acknowledged that the period’s conditions affected their judicial behavior, and negative binomial models show that increased attacks and ambush injuries lead to substantially longer sentences for members of the attacking group. The study highlights the need to understand violent extremism, noting that grievances in democratic countries can lead to violence. This is evident in the rise of right-wing extremism in North America and Europe, which can quickly escalate into violent actions. @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-469750017 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:6.0pt; margin-left:0in; text-align:justify; line-height:200%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:11.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:8.0pt; line-height:107%;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}

The left-wing terrorism in Italy in the 1970s and the Red brigades as its most significant symptom resulted in the long-term view from the fight between the partisans and the fascists in the Second World War and from the short-term view from the students' and labourers' protests in the end of 1960s. The Red brigades were founded in 1970 and were composed mainly by students from Trento (Curcio, Cagol), communists from Reggio Emilia (Franceschini, Gallinari) and labourers from Milano (Moretti). They began in the first years of their functioning with agitation in the factories, burning the cars of the high managers and kidnapping. The thesis follows gradual radicalisation of the group and the change of their aims - from this moment on mostly politicians, judges, state magistrates. The transformation of the Red brigades related to the personal changes in the leadership - after Curcio and Franceschini were arrested and Cagol killed, radical Moretti became very influential. The organisation under his leadership started to kill intentionally its victims and the wave of brutal attacks culminated in the spring 1978 in kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The Red brigades however became strongly socially isolated and several ideological differences among the members of the administration...

The thesis deals with terrorism and its development as a social phenomenon since 1970s. It has argued that terrorism has undergone a process of radicalization and globalization, particularly as a result of the changed international situation and proliferation of modern technology. Nationalistic terrorism has been replaced with a global form of terrorism. In a similar vein, revolutionist ideologies, typical for terrorist groups of 1970s and 1980s, has given a way to radical interpretations of religions, namely Islamism, which has received substantial popularity as a result of prevailing grievances of the Muslim world. Even though there is no clear distinction between the old and the new form of terrorism, the two social phenomena differ to an important extent. During the second half of 20th century leftist terrorist groups dominated the scene with their fight for a regime change and battle against capitalism as well as imperialism. The organization of the groups took the form of hierarchy and had only limited number of members. At the beginning of the new millennium, the situation changed dramatically with the proliferation of Islamic groups, including the global terrorist group al-Qaeda. The groups work without a formal power structure and are able to hit targets anywhere in the world, as the...

The dissertation thesis concerns with the issue of the left-wing terrorism in Italy and Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s. The chosen topic is approached using the methods of transnational studies, which have been thus far applied only exceptionally in the relation to this phenomenon, despite the numerous parallels in different countries. The focus of the research lies in the analysis of the German-Italian terrorist network as a whole, the contacts between the organizations and mutual influence. The direct and indirect comparison of the cooperating terrorist organizations is also a substantial part of the thesis. The protest movement, which spread at the end of the 1960s and from which emerged the future terrorist groups as its most radical branches, was an important transnational phenomenon itself. The first chapter concerns with the analysis of this movement, emphasizing the reasons of its inception and its stances on political violence. The student and worker aspects of the movement are introduced, as well as older roots in the anti-fascist resistance or in the work of the Marxist authors. The thesis finds a special inspiration for the radicalizing Left in the events in the Third World. The thesis further examines the individual terrorist groups, chosen according to their importance and relevance...