Julien Bellaiche

Julien Bellaiche is a Research Fellow at ICSR and the Administrator for the Repository of Extremist Aligned Documents (READ) project. He is also a PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London where his research focuses on the social and functional roles of conspiracy theories in violent extremist groups.

Prior to joining ICSR, Julien was an Analyst at the Jihadoscope (JOS) Project where he monitored violent extremist communities online.

Julien holds a BA in Political Science and Middle East Studies from Tel Aviv University and graduated with Distinction from King’s College London with an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society.

Research Interests

• Terrorism, extremism and radicalisation
• Conspiracy theories
• Social media
• Far-right movements
• Islamism and Salafi-Jihadism

Supervisors

• Dr Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens
• Dr Shiraz Maher

Publications

• “Imagined Threats: Demographic Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and the Legacy of the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue Attack” (London: ICSR & PoE, 2023). Available here.
• “Maintaining the Movement: ISIS Outreach to Westerners in the Post-Caliphate Era” with Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, The Program on Extremism at George Washington University, April 2023. Available here.
• “Connecting the Fringes: Neo-Nazi Glorification of Salafi-Jihadi Representations Online”, The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, August 2021. Available here.
• “QAnon: A Rising Threat to Democracy?”, The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict and Warfare, April 2021. Available here.
• “Assessing the Threat of QAnon Violence”, The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, June 2020. Available here.
• “Online Antisemitism in Times of COVID-19”, The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, April 2020. Available here.
• Book Review – Revisiting the Arab Uprisings: The Politics of a Revolutionary Moment. Edited by Stephane Lacroix and Jean-Pierre Filiu. Hurst Publishers, London, 2018.”, Libyan Studies, April 2019, Cambridge University Press, 1–2. Available here.