Political extremism in the attitude of Anders Behring Breivik – an attempt to analyze the influence of psychological factors

Abstract

Terrorist attempts carried out on 22nd of July, 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo and on Utoya island, targeting members of the Norwegian left-wing Labour Party, are the embodiment of “lone wolf ” terrorist acts. Anders Breivik be-came an ancestor and a symbol of modern terrorism and was a model for the next terrorists, for example Brenton Tarrant followed his tips to prepare his own terrorist attack in New Zealand. We can analyze the reasons for the attack on many levels, from political – his criticism of the left-liberal European authorities and his passion for conservative doctrines, particularly monarchy, criticism of Marxism, radical feminism and the influence of the Frankfurt School on contemporary centers of science. On the social level – his xenophobic and racist attitude against dissent-ers, ethnic and national minorities is analyzed through the issues of dysfunctional systems of internal, national and international security. In his manifesto – 2083 A European Declaration of Independence, he motivates his actions with passivity and even with the consent of the contemporary European authorities, to the mass migrations of Muslims, which according to him, threatened the Christian unity of Europe. However, the literature of the subject often ignores psychological factors, which, as the analysis below shows, played a significant role in molding the author-itarian, xenophobic and extremist personality of the Norwegian. The main goal of the article is to analyze the biography of the attacker and his manifesto in order to identify those psychological factors that influenced development of extremist attributes of the terrorist. One of the most important periods of personality for-mation is early childhood. Disruptions in this part of life undoubtably influenced the fate of Anders Behring Breivik.