Annelotte Janse is as a postdoctoral researcher in historical extremism studies and political violence and terrorism. Since September 2025, she has been based at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam, Germany, where she leads her own research project, ‘Bound by Rituals: Far-Right Public Events and Mobilization across Western Europe, 1951-1980,’ funded with a Rubicon grant from the Dutch Research Council. She completed her PhD at Utrecht University (2024). Her dissertation, on which this book is based, was awarded the Research Prize by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation (2026), a national award for outstanding dissertations in the humanities and social sciences. Her research has furthermore been recognized with a Hofvijverkring Fellowship for archival research in the United States (2022) and a Best Student Paper Prize at the Society for Terrorism Research’s Postgraduate Conference (2021). Her work has featured in several peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. She presents regularly to academic, policy, and public audiences, including security professionals and national and local politicians, and her commentary has featured in Dutch national news outlets (newspapers, podcasts, radio, and TV).
September 2025 – September 2027
Post-doctoral researcher, ZZF, Potsdam, Germany
January 2025 – April 2028
Post-doctoral fellow, Adapt!, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
May 2024 – September 2025
Post-doctoral researcher, TerInfo, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
September 2023 – December 2024
Researcher for Living Lab Rotterdam, School of Governance Consultancy, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
October 2019 – December 2023
Ph.D., Dept. History of International Relations, Utrecht University (the Netherlands).
- Dissertation Title: “The Pursuit of ‘White Security’. Transnational entanglements between West-German and American right-wing extremism, 1961–1980”
- Awarded the Research Prize by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation (2026)
- The dissertation comprehensively explored the topic of transnational violent right-wing extremism, which so far has only been the subject of rudimentary historical research. By bringing together primary sources from 19 archives in 6 countries, it reveals the pivotal role of transnational interactions, conferences, and clandestine meetings in the radicalization of the West German right-wing extremist movement between 1961 and 1980. It thereby challenges existing chronologies of radicalisation within the movement as well as explanations of the extreme right’s post-war return.
