Since the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) declared its caliphate in June 2014, there has been an unprecedented amount of terrorist attacks conducted in the West by individuals either inspired by jihadist ideology or linked to ISIS. As evidenced by the number of ISIS-related attacks throughout Europe and North America, the West faces an ongoing and persistent transnational threat from Islamic terrorism. There is an extensive amount of literature on terrorism and ISIS. However, there is a gap in literature on the potential impact of ISIS on the future of Islamic terrorism. This qualitative case study explored how ISIS potentially shaped the future of Islamic transnational terrorism. Stepanova'€™s asymmetric conflict theory served as the framework for this study. Interviews and one open-ended questionnaire on Islamic transnational terrorism were collected from 15 individuals within the defense enterprise, academia, and individuals working in private defense organizations, using purposive sampling. Analysis occurred by using Braum and Clarke'€™s six phases of coding. The results of this study indicated ISIS has shaped the future of transnational terrorism by demonstrating likeminded extremists no longer have to travel to conflict zones in order to plan or receive guidance on attack targets while using simple attack methods and weapons. Additionally, ISIS empowered and encouraged its members to interact with potential recruits or supporters through social media and open forums, which may possibly be emulated in the future by likeminded groups. The results contribute to positive social change by providing decision makers information on the future of Islamic transnational terrorism, thus allowing for appropriate countermeasures that mitigate terror activities.

The threat of lone offenders is a growing problem in Sweden and the world. In this study, three major Swedish newspapers have been selected and analyzed based on their portrayal of a lone wolf perpetrator: Theodor Engström, the man behind the knife murder of the psychiatry coordinator Ing-Marie Wieselgren during the political week in Almedalen, 2022. Using critical discourse analysis, we found a discursive construction of Engström as an extremist, terror suspect and mentally ill. We also found that these constructions emerged at different times during the course of the reporting from the first day of the attack until the end of the trials. This contributed to a complex and diverse representation of Engström and an indication of a creative discursive practice in the media news discourse. The analysis also revealed the distribution of discourses in terms of who was allowed to speak and from which perspectives Engström is presented. The results showed that the majority of all statements and claims were made by authoritarian voices in society or presented as objective truths. Thus, we also found an assumption that unjust power structures and dominance relations are reproduced in the media news discourse. The analysis also showed that the articles predominantly focused on the specific event and the individual Engström and made little reference to other individuals, events or situations. This can be interpreted to mean that the media news discourse is dominated by one perspective and that societal problems are individualized rather than placed in a broader social context. In the analysis of the social practice, the relationship between the discursive practice and theories of stigma was examined. The results showed that the representations of Engström as responsible for the act can lead to stigmatization and that this in turn can also contribute to an individualization of social problems. The result also showed that the relationship between the text, the discursive practice and the social practice both shapes and is shaped by stigma and that this can have consequences in the form of perpetuating and reproducing stereotypical ideas about different individuals and groups. / Hotet från ensamagerande gärningspersoner är en växande problematik i Sverige och världen. I den här studien har tre stora svenska tidningar har valts ut och analyserats utifrån hur de framställt en enensamagerande gärningsman: Theodor Engström, mannen bakom knivmordet på psykiatrisamordnaren Ing-Marie Wieselgren under politikerveckan i Almedalen, 2022. Med hjälp av kritisk diskursanalys fann vi en diskursiv konstruktion av Engström som extremist, terrormisstänkt och psykiskt sjuk. Vi fann också att dessa konstruktioner framkom vid olika tidpunkter under rapporteringens gång från dådets första dag fram till att rättegångarna avslutats. Detta bidrog till en komplex och mångsidig framställning av Engström och en indikation på en kreativ diskursivpraktik i den mediala nyhetsdiskursen. Av analysen framkom också hur fördelningen av diskurser sett ut i form av vilka som fått uttala sig och från vilka perspektiv som Engström framställs utifrån. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av alla yttringar och påståenden uttalats av auktoritära röster i samhället eller framställts som objektiva sanningar. Därmed fann vi också ett förmodande om att orättvisa maktordningar och dominansrelationer reproduceras i mediala nyhetsdiskursen. Analysen visade även att artiklarna övervägande fokuserade på den specifika händelsen och individen Engström och i låg grad refererade till andra individer, händelser eller situationer. Detta kan tolkas som att den mediala nyhetsdiskursen domineras av ett perspektiv samt att samhällsproblem individualiseras snarare än att sättas i en bredare social kontext. I analysen av den sociala praktiken undersöktes relationen mellan den diskursiva praktiken och teorier om stigma. Resultatet visade att framställningarna av Engström som ansvarig för dådet kan leda till stigmatisering och att detta i sin tur också är något som kan bidra till en individualisering av sociala problem. Resultatet visade även att förhållandet mellan texten, den diskursiva praktiken och den sociala praktiken både formar och formas av stigma och att detta kan få konsekvenser i form av att stereotypiska föreställningar om olika individer och grupper befästes och reproduceras.

The new phenomena of “school attacks” has emerged in Sweden since 2015. Between 2015 and today (2022), Sweden has been a subject of four “school attacks”, whereas three of these attacks have occurred within a period of seven months. In this thesis I aim to gain an in-depth insight about how “school attacks” are represented in the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism and further, to distinguish whether “school attacks” have been securitized in the national strategy. To study this, I will apply the securitization theory by Thierry Balzacq through the methodological framework of a WPR (What’s the problem represented to be?) discourse analysis on the material consisting of the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism from 2016. The findings suggest that there appears to be an undermining of right-wing extremism and exclusion of the loneactor of extremism in the strategy’s claims regarding what is the most prominent extremism-related threat to the State of Sweden and Swedish interests. Furthermore, I was able to distinguish that “school attacks” were not securitized in the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism.