Professor Jonathan Githens-Mazer

Jonathan Githens-Mazer is a Professor in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. His research interests include radicalisation, theories of ethnicity and nationalism, and the role of national identity in radical and/or violent political mobilisation. This includes the examination of how myths, memories and symbols of the nation can form a popular basis for radical nationalism in cases which were previously defined by a predominant popular commitment to moderate and/or constitutional nationalism.

His publications have examined this process in the Irish context (1916), the Algerian context (20th century), and he is currently examining how similar processes may underpin radicalisation amongst North African immigrants living in Europe. As a function of this research, he is also more broadly interested in understanding the role of myths, memories and symbols in processes of micro- and macro- mobilisation, and more broadly the interplay between cultural identity and political behaviour, particularly the interface between collective identity and inidivdual participation in radical violent action.