Extremism is about the fringe, which the representatives of the mainstream defines as extreme. In times of multiple crises, the understanding of what is ‘extreme’ and how to study it is in flux. According to data from the V-Dem Institute, in 2025, 72 per cent of the world’s population currently lives under an autocratic government, up from 46 per cent a decade ago. Most of the Aleksanteri Institute’s target areas of Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies belong to this autocratising space. However, hate speech, intolerance and the advancement of ideas that neglect human rights and fundamental freedoms are also becoming common phenomena in the EU. Researchers working on extremism are more exposed politically and face online harassment, even direct threats, across Europe.
The research environment can also be challenging, especially on the Eastern flank of the EU, where national interests limit academic freedom. Hostility and aggression are directed towards researchers of certain political backgrounds or genders. In countries where extremist narratives are mainstreamed in public discourse, access to informants from political parties or state officials can be difficult, because these actors do not trust nonpartisan researchers to interpret their message correctly. Some politically biased groups even intentionally ‘feed’ disinformation to scholars. Dealing with big data on hate speech can also gradually influence researchers’ ability to work. Some cannot stand it and change their research subject altogether; others get so accustomed to hate speech that it alters their ability to distinguish the extreme elements in mass data.
Polarisation can be detected in the gradually advancing politicisation of academia and academic knowledge all over Europe. Especially in the humanities and social sciences, the often-close relation between scholars and political decision-making has a bearing on the evaluation of research content. The underlying dilemma is between the pursuit of academic integrity and serving the common good by tackling ad hoc societal problems. What the common good is and how well it is served by research results is defined by the political elites and their ever-changing value-based priorities. In the European academic environment, this liaison is translated into dependence on funding by state authorities with a political purpose. Research running against the prevailing ideological foundations and day-to-day aims of political power is frequently marginalised or even politically attacked. Furthermore, in the crisis-stricken world, situations that demand swift reactions from political powerholders reflect rapid changes in their evaluation of what is ‘useful’ science.
Academia is embedded in the surrounding society, and as such it mirrors the political conditions. In times of multiple crises, the increasing political engagement of universities’ students and staff affects academic communities profoundly. Confrontations and polarisation are emerging within the scholarly environment where students and researchers take a political stand and resist diverging ideas. This phenomenon jeopardises academic freedom from within by limiting what are suitable interpretations. However, this situation has a wider social consequence: polarising academia influences greatly public discourses on values, civic freedoms and the definition of democracy.