Work

The Pied Piper of 4chan : Fairy-tale narratives of racist and misogynistic radicalisation in UK elite political discourse

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: UK political elites increasingly represent racist and misogynistic violence as a problem of ‘radicalisation’ in which, like the Pied Piper luring the children of Hamelin, predatory online ‘radicalisers’ lure and brainwash susceptible youth. This article examines how this narrative achieves dominance despite the availability of empirically grounded alternatives, asking what role narrative form plays in its success. Through a narrative analysis of UK counterterrorism policies and parliamentary statements, it reconstructs the narrative’s setting, characterisation and emplotment, demonstrating significant resemblances with several popular fairy tales. The article argues that this intertextual resonance with culturally embedded story forms lends the ‘radicalisation’ narrative a familiarity and coherence that alternative narratives – which foreground the everyday settings, adult perpetrators and structural persistence of these harms – lack. The article concludes by suggesting that contesting the ‘radicalisation’ narrative’s dominance requires telling counter-stories of comparable verisimilitude rather than simply assembling better evidence.

Source: The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

DOI: 10.1177/13691481261496695

Author: Rohan Kit Bains Stevenson

Institution: University of Helsinki

Language: English

Topic: Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650