Today, jihadism is at once more globalised and closer to home than ever before. In seeking to explore how Islamic State has been able to attract tens of thousands of fighters from as many as 86 states across the world, the media limelight has shone brightly on stories like that of Australian Jake Bilardi, but nuanced understanding of recruitment is routinely sacrificed.

The author, Charlie Winter, is a Senior Research Associate at Georgia State University’s Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative, where his research focuses on transnational jihadist movements and insurgency. As well as managing a Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative Project, ‘Preventing the next generation: mapping the pathways of child mobilization into violent extremist organizations’, he is quantitatively and qualitatively assessing Islamic State’s outreach strategy, and specialising in the sourcing, translation, and analysis of Arabic-language documents circulated online by jihadists.