Kledian Myftari is a joint Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Charles University and Psychology at the University of Copenhagen. Earning summa cum laude honors, he holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Charles University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Tirana. His research centers on foreign fighters, political violence, violent extremism, and terrorism, with a current focus on varying levels of religious radicalization in the Western Balkans. Specific interests include intergroup dynamics, social identity, conflict, religion, and their influence on social relations within this context. Myftari has notably contributed as the third author to a book chapter examining threat perceptions in violent extremism for the upcoming Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Violent Extremism, under consideration by Cambridge University Press. He has also published from an interdisciplinary, cultural studies -informed work on the Albanian media’s response to the 2007 economic crisis.