Álvaro Vicente

Álvaro Vicente is a Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute and a Lecturer in the Department of Public Law I and Political Science at Rey Juan Carlos University.

He specialises in extremist movements and other forms of exclusionary or anti-democratic mobilisation, which he studies from a transnational and global perspective, with a particular focus on Spain.

He is a member of the European Commission’s expert panel on managing violent extremism in prisons, within the EU Knowledge Hub, and of the European Research Community on Radicalisation (ERCOR). He previously produced technical reports for the European Commission’s RAN Policy-Support and was a visiting researcher at the Centre on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence.

In 2024, he received the Juan Linz Award for doctoral theses in Political Science from the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies.

Research Areas

His research focuses on jihadism, the extreme right and emerging forms of extremism, as well as other expressions of exclusionary and anti-democratic mobilisation.

He examines the conditions under which these phenomena foster political violence, alongside their effects on the functioning of institutions, social cohesion and national sovereignty.

He studies individual processes of radicalisation and disengagement from violence, the dynamics of the groups and organisations that make up extremist movements, and the political and social factors that explain their development.

A cross-cutting dimension of his work is the design and evaluation of policies to prevent radicalisation, particularly in prison settings.

Selected Publications

His publications include, amongst others:

• La extrema derecha antidemocrática en España: amenazas tradicionales y emergentes (forthcoming publication, Elcano Royal Institute, 2026).
• Rethinking the relationship between prison and radicalization: insights from jihadist inmates in Spain (English version of Reafirmación y abandono de la yihad global: trayectorias personales de presos yihadistas en España, forthcoming publication, Elcano Royal Institute, 2026).

The latter sets out on his fieldwork with jihadist prisoners in Spain.

His research has also appeared in leading journals specialising in political violence, including Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and CTC Sentinel.

Other contact information:  Álvaro Vicente on LinkedIn.