Because Our Survival Depends On It : Thematizing Breivik’s Manifesto in the Light of Moral

Abstract: On the 22nd of July 2011, Norwegian lone actor Anders Behring Breivik decided tocarry out his life mission; a mission, which resulted in two separate terrorist attackskilling 77 individuals linked to the Norwegian Labour Party. The attacks directlycontributed to launch the second violence wave of the modern right-wing extremistmovement, turning it into the most violent movement of today in Western Europe. Theyalso contributed to establish Breivik as a template and a hero for many of theindividuals active in the right-wing extremist movement, making other right-wing loneactors follow Breivik's methods and committing crimes in the name of the sameideology as him. But which specific moral arguments did Breivik use in order to justifyand promote "his" ideology, and beyond that, his crime? In order to answer thatquestion, in this thesis, Breivik's manifesto was analysed using the situational actiontheory as a moral base. A simple discourse analysis framed by the intersectionalperspective was used as a method, and the analysis resulted in three main themes -Ethnicity, Religion, and Gender - as well as six sub-themes that highlighted the fight-forand the fight-against dimensions of each theme. In the discussion, the violent languageand the hierarchical order of the themes were examined, which demonstrated that acriminological perspective is needed when the connection between ideology and crimeis to be understood. The thesis was thereafter concluded with the notion that ideologyneeds to be seen as an independent risk factor in order for these types of crimes to beprevented.