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A conceptual illustration showing a lone figure in a green shirt walking along a crumbling stone path that disintegrates into scattered fragments and fiery orange chaos on the right. The left depicts a serene green landscape with a setting sun, rolling hills, and trees, symbolizing the fragmentation of ideological frameworks and the collapse of defined structures into disordered violent extremism.

The end of ideological violence

$A conceptual double-exposure photo showing a young adolescent's face blended with a cracked, weathered wall texture, symbolizing political alienation and disillusionment. The left half reveals the youth's serious expression while the right dissolves into fractured, peeling surfaces, visually representing distrust, powerlessness, and psychological fragmentation associated with the pathway from system-disillusionment toward political radicalism in Swedish adolescents.$

System-disillusioned youth radicalize: The role of political alienation in the formation of political radicalism

$A photo showing a fragmented, close-up human face in muted blue-gray tones, overlaid with distorted textures and streaks of vivid red. The image is heavily manipulated with cracked, glass-like fractures and double-exposure effects that obscure the eyes, evoking themes of psychological rupture, obscured identity, and violence—visually paralleling the article's discussion of ideology-free extremism fixated on aggression itself.$

Extremism without ideology

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John Horgan

Georgia State University

ORCID Profile Google Scholar

John Horgan is a Professor in the Global Studies Institute and the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University, a position he has held since 2015. Horgan's research addresses extremism, terrorism, and political violence, with work that draws on psychological and ideological dimensions of how individuals become involved in, and disengage from, violent movements.

Has published with:

Morgan Shayler

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150 Publications

5,164 Citations

34 h-index

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Publications in advances.in/psychology

$A mixed-media collage portrait showing a faceless human figure constructed from torn paper fragments in muted tones of beige, gray, blue, and brown. The fractured, layered composition assembles disparate scraps into a single ambiguous form, visually evoking the article's theme of fragmented, patchwork ideologies and the conceptual incoherence behind "salad bar" extremism, where contradictory pieces combine into one unstable identity.$

Perspective

Why the ‘salad bar of ideologies’ does not help us understand contemporary violent extremism

By John Horgan & Morgan Shayler

June 16, 2026

Page last updated: July 17, 2026