Enemy Images: Emergence, Consequences and Counteraction

This book offers a detailed understanding of ’enemy images’, which are used in political rhetoric to dehumanize adversaries for various purposes, such as to legitimate violent conflicts.

Applying theoretical models to a strong catalogue of historical and recent examples - from blood libel narratives in medieval manuscripts, to state-sponsored children’s board games in Nazi Germany and social media posts about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine - the book identifies how ’enemy images’ have led to the development of dominant socio-political paradigms by providing justifications for and reinforcements of violent conflicts both within and between societies. In doing so, the work offers an up-to-date, accessible and authoritative overview of how to identify, analyse, and counteract energy images - which will be key to fostering social environments of reconciliation and peacebuilding for the future.

This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, International Relations, history, political sociology, and communication studies.

Kristian Steiner is Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at Malmö University, Sweden. He has authored numerous articles in peace and conflict studies and political science. His research revolves around the usage of religious language to justify violence. He co-edited Expressions of Radicalization: Global Politics, Processes and Practices (with Andreas Önnerfors, 2018).

Andreas Jahrehorn Önnerfors is Full Professor in Intellectual History and works as a project leader at Fojo Media Institute at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He has specialized in contemporary radicalization, populist mobilization, and conspiratorial meaning-making. In 2021, he co-edited Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Conspiracy theories in and about Europe with André Krouwel.