Extremist timelines: interrogating the politics of time in twenty-first-century violent anti-liberal movements.

This article seeks to enrich understanding of Amitav Acharya's formulation of the multiplex world order in two novel ways. First, it recentres violent extremist actors as being among the architects of such multiplexity and, second, it highlights their contribution to multiplexity's temporal pluralis...

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Published in:International Affairs Vol. 102; no. 2; pp. 481 - 503
Main Author: Chan, Nicholas
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press / USA Mar2026
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar2026
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        atl: Extremist timelines: interrogating the politics of time in twenty-first-century violent anti-liberal movements.
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        au: Chan, Nicholas
        affil: Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
      su:
        Millennialism
        Radicalism
        Critical discourse analysis
        Ideology
        Right-wing extremists
        Philosophy of time
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        subj:
          Millennialism
          Radicalism
          Critical discourse analysis
          Ideology
          Right-wing extremists
          Philosophy of time
      keyword:
        constructivism
        copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs
        copyrightYear:2026
        inLanguage:en
        international security
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        radicalization
        religion
        revolutions
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf237
        terrorism
        constructivism
        copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs
        copyrightYear:2026
        inLanguage:en
        international security
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        radicalization
        religion
        revolutions
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf237
        terrorism
      ab: This article seeks to enrich understanding of Amitav Acharya's formulation of the multiplex world order in two novel ways. First, it recentres violent extremist actors as being among the architects of such multiplexity and, second, it highlights their contribution to multiplexity's temporal pluralism. The article makes a theoretical contribution in conceptualizing temporalities as a defining feature of the multiplex's complexity and diversity; a methodological contribution in conceptualizing timelines as a framework to study the temporal element of extremist politics; and an empirical contribution through an original and comparative reading of the fictions, manifestos and newsletters of Islamic State and a selection of white power terrorists. The reading focuses on three elements: crisis discourse, accelerationist logic and millenarian visions. As meta-narratives of world political time, extremist timelines not only shed light on the world-views of their purveyors but also the phenomenological quality of their politics. Besides enriching and endangering its diversity and complexity, these radical timelines also historicize the multiplex as emergent within a collective mood of alienation, apocalyptic urgency and crisis.
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      src: R
    language: English
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