Cynthia Miller-Idriss

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at American University

. This article examines complex everyday expressions and understandings of nationhood in Germany, focusing on citizens' articulations of national pride and their relationship with the nation. Through an analysis of ninety semi-structured interviews with ‘ordinary’ Germans conducted between 2000 and 2002, we argue that the prevailing, elite-centred...

The German vocational system has faced significant challenges since 1990, including the impact of German unification; challenges posed by globalisation and the shift from a production-based to a post-Fordist economy; changes related to the European Union, migration, and immigration; and demographic changes within Germany that have affected both stu...

Despite wide consensus among higher education leaders that U.S. universities are undergoing a process of "globalization," there is little agreement about just what globalization means, what propels it, or what intellectual, political, and ethical consequences it will bring for American higher education. There is little systematic empirical research...

This paper maps the landscape of transnational higher education in the Middle East, focusing in particular on the recent expansion of satellite, branch, and offshore educational institutions and programs that foreign institutions have set up in the region. Of the estimated 100 branch campuses currently operating worldwide, over one-third are in the...

Has fascism arrived in America? In this pioneering book, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward have gathered experts to survey the history of fascism in the United States. Although the US established a staunch anti-fascist reputation by defeating the Axis powers in World War II, the unsettling truth is that fascist ideas have long been present within...

On November 23, 2022, Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University, presented on Extremist Recruitment and Extremist Sentiment Normalization. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executive...

Despite the widespread assumption that online misbehavior affects outcomes related to political extremism, few studies have provided empirical evidence to this effect. To redress this gap, we performed two studies in which we explored the relationship between subversive online activities and susceptibility to persuasion by far-right extremist propa...

Was tun, wenn sich Symbolik, Bildsprache und Rhetorik (extrem) rechter Gesinnungsgruppen nicht mehr klar von Mainstream, Normcore und linken Kommunikationsguerilla-Strategien unterscheiden lassen? Es kommt zu toxischen Effekten mit schwerwiegenden Folgen: Über Moden und Styles werden extrem rechte Identitäten popularisiert, rechte Gruppierungen eig...

BACKGROUND Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, a variety of COVID-19 related misinformation has spread and been amplified online. The spread of misinformation can influence COVID-19 beliefs and protective actions including vaccine hesitancy. Belief in vaccine misinformation is associated with lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resista...

Background Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, a variety of COVID-19-related misinformation has spread and been amplified online. The spread of misinformation can influence COVID-19 beliefs and protective actions, including vaccine hesitancy. Belief in vaccine misinformation is associated with lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resist...

BACKGROUND Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, a variety of COVID-19 related misinformation has spread and been amplified online. The spread of misinformation can influence COVID-19 beliefs and protective actions including vaccine hesitancy. Belief in vaccine misinformation is associated with lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resista...

The effectiveness of attitudinal inoculation in reducing the persuasive appeal of undesirable beliefs and behaviors is long established across multiple domains. However, investigations into its use for preventing violent extremism have only recently been undertaken. The current study adds to this literature by examining the moderating effects of fa...

Socialization is a key mechanism of social reproduction. Yet, like the functionalists who introduced the concept, socialization has fallen out of favor, critiqued for ignoring power and agency, for its teleology and incoherence, and for a misguided link to “culture of poverty” arguments. In this review, we argue for a renewed, postfunctionalist use...

Vaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative co...

The goal of this study is to explore predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, including socio-demographic factors, comorbidity, risk perception, and experience of discrimination, in a sample of the U.S. population. We used a cross-sectional online survey study design, implemented between 13–23 December 2020. The survey was limited to respondents r...

Despite the widespread assumption that online misbehavior can affect outcomes related to political extremism, no extant research has provided empirical evidence to this effect. To redress this gap in the literature, we performed two studies in which we explore the relationship between subversive online activities and proclivity for persuasion by fa...

Hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine remains high among the US population. Now that the vaccine is available to priority populations, it is critical to convince those that are hesitant to take the vaccine. Public health communication about the vaccine as well as misinformation on the vaccine occurs through a variety of different information chann...

Vaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative co...

Hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine remains high among the US population. Now that the vaccine is available to priority populations, it is critical to convince those that are hesitant to take the vaccine. Public health communication about the vaccine as well as misinformation on the vaccine occurs through a variety of different information chann...

Importance: Immunization programs are only successful when there are high rates of acceptance and coverage. While delivering billions of COVID 19 doses globally addressing vaccine hesitancy will be one of the most significant public health communication efforts ever undertaken. Objective: The goal of this study is to explore predictors of COVID 19...

This afterward synthesizes the primary arguments of each of the contributors to this volume, and suggests several next steps for analyses of gender and the far right. The chapter suggests that there is a need for more serious inquiry in four domains: on the intersections of extremism and gender-based violence, on how gender relates to subcultural a...

Socialization is a key mechanism of social reproduction. Yet, like the functionalists who introduced the concept, socialization has fallen out of favor, critiqued for ignoring power and agency, for its teleology and incoherence, and for its link to misguided “culture of poverty” arguments. In this review, we argue for renewed, post-functionalist us...

In this article, several scholars of nationalism discuss the potential for the COVID‐19 pandemic to impact the development of nationalism and world politics. To structure the discussion, the contributors respond to three questions: (1) how should we understand the relationship between nationalism and COVID‐19; (2) will COVID‐19 fuel ethnic and nati...

Images of students in overseas settings have become a common feature of university websites in the USA, as universities employ bold visual imagery to encourage student participation in study abroad programs and to market the university more broadly. In this paper, we analyze the content of this visual material, reporting on an extensive analysis of...

This chapter analyzes symbols borrowed from non-German movements and global or pan-Aryan extremists. Here, the chapter also includes the appropriation of nonextremist products that have been assigned new meaning as well as symbols and codes that are in languages other than German. The chapter highlights the multivocality of far right symbols that a...

This chapter examines historical and contemporary far right wing symbols that directly depict, reference, or evoke death or dying through reference to historical myths and legends as well as contemporary acts of violence. It traces three ways in which the far right deploys symbols of death: abstract death, specific deaths and death threats, and ref...

This chapter undertakes a careful analysis of commercial iconography and accompanying slogans and textual references to Norse and Germanic mythology in T-shirts and other products. It combines the analysis with interview data explaining how youth interpret the meaning of these symbols and myths. The chapter argues that the fantasy of Nordic heritag...

This chapter focuses on how youth fashion and style serve as markers and expressions of belonging and resistance in ways that mutually reinforce masculinity and nationalism. The chapter shows that style is deeply personal and intentional for young people. While research on young women has long discussed issues of body image, the interview data disc...

This concluding chapter teases out two sets of implications illuminated in the book: one for our understanding of culture and one for our understanding of nationalism and extremism. Both implications rest on the evidence presented in the previous chapters of how the use of coded symbols can serve as a mechanism both of belonging and of resistance,...

This chapter situates the empirical base of this book within theories of culture, nationalism, iconography, and youth extremist subcultures. It begins by describing two prevailing notions of how culture “works”—one that presents culture as a coherent meaning system and the other that characterizes it as a “tool kit” of actions and strategies. The c...

Far right politics and extremist violence are on the rise across Europe, prompting scholars and policymakers to question why extremism has become so appealing to so many people. This book examines how far right ideologies have entered mainstream German culture through commercialized products and clothing laced with extremist, anti-Semitic, racist,...

This chapter focuses on the ways in which symbolic codes are manipulated and deployed in the iconography and text of clothing products. It focuses in particular on the use of codes that draw on alphanumeric combinations or on historical references. Such codes are seen not only on T-shirts and other clothing products but also on tattoos, license pla...

This introductory chapter discusses the emergence of the extremist commercial market and how it has coincided with one of the most significant waves of far right popularity in Europe in recent memory. The past several years have witnessed a steady increase in far right wing politics and social movements across Europe. Such protests and violent epis...

Populist nationalist movements have primarily been understood through their nationalist frames, even as the media and scholars alike frequently refer to ‘global’ trends related to populism. But there are in fact global dimensions to populist nationalism that deserve more conceptual and analytical attention. Three ways in which populist nationalism...

How have digital tools and networks transformed the far right's strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an internationa...

The past decade has witnessed a steady increase in far right politics, social movements, and extremist violence in Europe. Scholars and policymakers have struggled to understand the causes and dynamics that have made the far right so appealing to so many people—in other words, that have made the extreme more mainstream. In this book, Cynthia Miller...

U.S. research universities have long endeavored to be cosmopolitan places, yet the disciplines of economics, political science, and sociology have remained stubbornly parochial. Despite decades of government and philanthropic investment in international scholarship, the most prestigious academic departments still favor research and expertise on the...

Drawing on a unique digital archive of thousands of images of far right symbols and commercial products in Germany, combined with 62 interviews conducted with German youth and their teachers in 2013–2014, this article examines young Germans’ sense of style and their interpretation of far right-wing symbols and codes in commercial products, clothing...

Taking Moland's article as a starting point, the chapter suggests that debates about "exporting" and "importing" concepts like multiculturalism need to be realigned with new theoretical and practical understandings of how identities work. We offer two primary categories of concerns. First, focusing on "exporting" multiculturalism inadvertently obsc...

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to draw a portrait of the issues animating and challenging the field of Middle East studies (MES) in their academic and national contexts. The book presents some of the findings of a decade-long (2000–2010) research project organized by the Social Science Research Council in New York,...

This chapter analyzes the position of the “area studies center” as a major institutional form in the context of a US university that seeks to transform itself into a global institution. It looks at the case of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University (NYU). NYU is a compelling case for several reasons. First, it ex...

Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/foreign-students-not-a-threat-but-an-advantage-39728

Existing studies of the internationalization of higher education have detailed the broad contours of change in the new global era, but they have told us much less about the individuals and processes underpinning these transformations. Moreover, they tend to treat internationalization as a recent or new phenomenon. There have been prior waves of int...

In the US academy, there is significant disciplinary variation in the extent to which graduate students are encouraged to or discouraged from studying abroad and doing fieldwork overseas. This article examines this issue, focusing on US graduate training in the social sciences and the extent to which students are discouraged from developing interna...

Nationalism has been defined in a variety of ways, but definitions are always rooted in the nation, which most scholars agree emerged during the transition to the modern industrial age, supplanting monarchies and other kinds of prior communities and groups based on kinship or tribal ties. Initially, scholars saw nations as based on primordial attac...

This paper examines the organisation of the production of knowledge about international issues in US higher education, drawing on six case studies of Middle East studies. We review three key findings. First, we suggest that the American model for studying ‘the international’ is rooted in a default, and outmoded, way of thinking about international...

Most scholarship on citizenship focuses on institutional and structural analyses and extrapolates these to individual citizens' experiences. This renders citizenship a static and uniform concept that is divorced from individuals' understandings. Data gathered during qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin, Germany, in 2000–01 show how ordi...

A new cultural formation of national belonging is emerging among young, working-class Germans, in which culture dominates biology in explanations of who belongs in Germany. Relying on ethnographic research conducted in three vocational schools in Berlin over 18 months in 2000--2002, including classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with...

The German vocational system has faced significant challenges since 1990, including the impact of German unification; challenges posed by globalisation and the shift from a production-based to a post-Fordist economy; changes related to the European Union, migration, and immigration; and demographic changes within Germany that have affected both stu...