Transnational Dynamics in Violent Outcomes for Protest Movements: A Rapid Evidence Assessment

Executive Summary

Introduction

This executive summary of the Full Report, offers a synthesis and critical analysis of research that has considered whether and how transnational dynamics inform the interaction between protest, radicalisation, and terrorism.

The analysis draws on research on transnational movements and processes that inform how and why people engage in protests which are or become violent, and which involve violent extremist actors. It explores the influence of transnational intergroup relations.

Aims

This review seeks to synthesise existing research on transnational mechanisms and processes to provide insights into the factors that shape protest-extremism dynamics to address the following primary research questions:

1. What increases the vulnerability of protest mobilisations to transnational actors (states, violent movements, individuals) promoting violence across borders?
2. What factors constrain the potential for violence, radicalisation, and terrorism in transnational social movements/ mobilisations?
3. Under what conditions do alliances between social movements and international actors lead to an increased potential for violence? What characteristics of both types of actors contribute to this dynamic?
4. What are the mechanisms of influence between transnational and local protest mobilisations?

Methodology 

This research uses a rapid evidence assessment (REA) approach, synthesising knowledge on specific topics in line with the research questions from published journal articles, book chapters, reports, and dissertations, including both academic and “grey” literature (e.g., government and think tank reports).

The REA adopted a streamlined methodology using keyword searches of major social science databases, after which identified documents were screened for inclusion based on pre-determined eligibility criteria.

Key findings 

The literature on both transnational protests and transnational interactions with local movements or protests does not significantly differ from the core findings of the previous two Rapid Evidence Assessments in this series which focused on social movement insights into violent protests (Salman, Marsden, Lewis, 2025) and interdisciplinary research into individual-level processes that shape radicalisation and violence related to protests (Peterscheck, Marsden & Salman, 2025). Earlier findings that remain highly relevant to transnational processes include:

• Movement schism and fragmentation may increase potential for violence.
• Exposure to misinformation influences protest dynamics in ways which can increase the danger of violent escalation.
• The potential for counter-messaging to be counter-productive by producing unintended effects like reinforcing commitment to pre-existing positions, enhancing grievances like perceived discrimination, and reinforcing identities.
• Digital platforms play a role in forging collective identities, including or especially transnational ones.
• Fringe political movements are associated with increased acceptance of political violence.
• Identity fusion, especially in relation to perceived threats against a group, increases the salience of group identity and individual commitment to actions in support or defence of the group, even at cost to the individual.
• Perceptions of existential threats, discrimination, collective angst, and shared grievances can intensify group identity.

The social movement literature has developed a significant body of work on transnational movements. The key insights from the social movement and interdisciplinary literature on violence and protests also help to interpret cross-border influences. Transnational perspectives primarily add another layer of interaction, mutual influence, and opportunities for resource sharing and mobilisation. However, the mediating factors that influence contemporary social movement mobilisations, including new technology and the role of social media and their influence on violence have received less attention. This is particularly the case when violence is informed by local events and dynamics, but is influenced by transnational actors and processes. This suggests a broader gap to be filled by future research on the questions outlined in this report. 

Core findings with specific focus on transnational movements include the following:

Transnational protest movements are becoming increasingly diffuse, partly in response to the increased role of social media and online interactions between strangers. Both highly diffuse and segmented identitarian movements have an important role in the radicalisation of individuals and groups across a wide spectrum of movements. These are often “civilisational”, religious, or gender-based identities that do not refer to the state and which may organise themselves as “anti-systemic” movements.

The key — and novel — role played by rapidly evolving online platforms in diffusing transnational movements means that local conflicts or protests are increasingly vulnerable to being inflamed by transnational actors: immigration, anti-Muslim and economic themes seem most vulnerable to transnational influence.

The mediating mechanisms that make these interactions possible are evolving rapidly, creating complex new “webs of influence” that are only beginning to be mapped and understood.

Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are the most resonant issues for far-right groups, and anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim protests have been most frequently violent over the last quarter of a century across Europe.

Strong evidence indicates that some states, and state-aligned movements, play roles in influencing transnational movements: they attempt to mobilise or radicalise local movements, or to accelerate peaceful protest movements toward violent confrontation. The evidence is mixed in the literature on actors like Iran, but stronger on Russia, which has developed a set of policies for liaising with local groups in what Rekawek and Molas call “political warfare” (Rekawek and Molas 2024). Evidence of their success in achieving that influence is mixed, preliminary, and largely anecdotal.

Synthesised evidence from the review partially supports the widely held hypothesis that mis- and disinformation played important roles in some recent episodes of violent protests with a transnational element, although not all. Available evidence supports the role of mis- and disinformation in violent escalation during the Charlottesville mobilisation in 2017 and the Capital Riots in 2021 in the United States, as well as the unrest in Leicester primarily between British Hindus and British Muslims in 2022, and violent mobilisations following the attack by Axel Rudakubana in 2024 in Southport, UK. However, this evidence is preliminary and often falls outside the ordinary scope of the review as it is found in grey literature or in adjacent fields. The review did not find evidence that mis- or disinformation played a catalysing role in violence related to other major protests, such as the Yellow Vest movement in France to antiwar or anti-globalisation protests.

Key recommendations:

1. Prioritise violence prevention efforts toward anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim mobilisations; ensure that public messaging and discourse does not contribute to dehumanisation.
2. Support research and knowledge building with a focus on transnational actors seeking to inflame existing grievances within the UK, especially work that captures multiple platforms and reflects webs-of-influence, including non-English content.
3. Address core grievances exploited by malign actors, including economic inequality, barriers to socioeconomic advancement, and perceived inequalities of access to full citizenship, rights, and belonging.
4. Focus attention on Russian and other hostile state actors’ influence operations online and off, both in the UK and beyond.
5. Support social media companies’ efforts to identify and remove disinformation, actors promoting violence, and enhance mechanisms to combat misinformation.
6. Enhance protections from transnational repression for protected speech, beliefs, and human rights.
7. Avoid repressive and militarised policing methods that reduce the space for lawful protest, particularly in the context of mobilisations seeking social or political change within existing liberal democratic structures.
8. Increase opportunities for peaceable, democratic engagement with political systems.
9. Carefully consider the most appropriate way of responding to splits and movement fragmentation whilst reducing the potential for violent radical flanks to develop.
10. Consider the implications of state repression overseas, and the potential for this to diffuse across contexts to understand the likelihood of escalatory violence between protesters and state actors.
11. Pay attention to the potential for violence where perceptions of threat and discrimination coincide with real-world violence, including violence perpetrated overseas.

The full report provides a detailed breakdown of results, organised into four broad themes: internal dynamics, external influences, mechanisms of influence, and interaction effects. While each research question overlaps these categories, this structure helps clarify the range of factors shaping transnational protest–extremism dynamics.

The in-depth findings are summarised in the main report using tables adapted from the EMMIE framework, capturing the strength and direction of evidence, the mechanisms and mediators at play, and the contextual factors that shape outcomes.

Full detail, including the categorised findings and evidence tables, can be found in the main report.

Read the full report