The Allen, Texas, Attack: Ideological Fuzziness and the Contemporary Nature of Far-Right Violence (original) (raw)
Related papers
Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States by
2018
Racialist, Anti-Federalist, and Christian Fundamentalist ideologies drive adherents of the American Far Right. Terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Dylan Roof exemplify the damage, to property and life, caused by planned, calculated acts of terrorism motivated by far-right sentiments. Nevertheless, a growing number of American Far Right ideologically motivated attacks occur spontaneously and without premeditation. The stabbing to death of Richard Collins III by Sean Christopher Urbanski at the University of Maryland is a case in point, as it occurred without warning and no evidence suggests the victim or offender knew each other. This murder and similar incidents drive us to question what drives affiliates of American Far Right groups to commit spontaneous, unplanned attacks? More specifically, we develop a theoretical framework that strives to explain how personality traits and the characteristics of the offender’s community, may facilitate such incidents. To test our theoretical fr...
Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States
Perspectives on Terrorism, 2018
Racialist, Anti-Federalist, and Christian Fundamentalist ideologies drive adherents of the American Far Right. Terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Dylan Roof exemplify the damage, to property and life, caused by planned, calculated acts of terrorism motivated by far-right sentiments. Nevertheless, a growing number of American Far Right ideologically motivated attacks occur spontaneously and without premeditation. The stabbing to death of Richard Collins III by Sean Christopher Urbanski at the University of Maryland is a case in point, as it occurred without warning and no evidence suggests the victim or offender knew each other. This murder and similar incidents drive us to question what drives affiliates of American Far Right groups to commit spontaneous, unplanned attacks? More specifically, we develop a theoretical framework that strives to explain how personality traits and the characteristics of the offender's community, may facilitate such incidents. To test our theoretical framework, we utilize a dataset of 1,000 spontaneous far-right attacks between 1990-2012 as well as a dataset of a control group of approximately 300 planned attacks driven by adherents of the American Far Right. We find that locations undergoing demographic diversification, related to 'other' racial categories, and which have an increasing median individual income, will have a higher chance of spontaneous attacks. Coincidentally, spontaneous perpetrators are less socially connected to their community than planned perpetrators. We argue spontaneous perpetrators react spontaneously because they observe their community changing and react criminally without an element of planning.
Far-Right Lone Wolf Homicides in the United States
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2013
The current study comparatively examines homicide events perpetrated by far-right extremists and "average" homicide events in the United States. Recent violence has highlighted the threat that far-right extremists pose to public safety and national security. To date, however, little is known about how such events compare to more common forms of homicide. Drawing from research on homicide, "hate crimes," and domestic terrorism, this study addresses this gap in the research. Original open-source data on far-right extremist perpetrated homicide are integrated with traditional homicide data to overcome methodological and other substantive obstacles that have precluded the study of this form of violence. A number of similarities and differences across these forms of homicide demonstrate the heterogeneity in the nature of homicide in the United States. Implications for policy makers and law enforcement, as well as the broader study of homicide and domestic extremism, are discussed.
All-American Massacre : The Tragic Role of American Culture and Society in Mass Shootings, edited by
All-American Massacre : The Tragic Role of American Culture and Society in Mass Shootings, 2023
White supremacist websiteshave become virtual breeding grounds for ideologically motivated violence. In this chapter, we combine the scholarship on emotions in social movements and on interactions in online environments with the preliminary analysis of data we collected on white supremacist websites to examine the links between those websites and ideologically motivated violence. We focus on two interrelated features of these websites that seem especially relevant to understand ideologically motivated violence: they incite violent revenge and induce derealization.
Homicide Studies, 2017
This study compared honor killings, domestic violence homicides, and hate homicides committed by far-right extremists. Prior research has suggested that terrorists may differ from “regular” offenders whereas others suggest similarities. Data from the Extremist Crime Database were used to compare honor killings committed in the United States since 1990 to domestic violence and hate homicides ( N = 48). Open-source documents were closed coded for criminal justice involvement, domestic violence history, motivation, and offenders’ mental illness. Honor killings were more likely to have a history of domestic violence in open sources than hate homicides, suggesting these three homicides may be more similar than different.
Ethno-nationalism and Right-Wing Extremist Violence in the United States, 2000 through 2018
Sociological Science
Influential studies of right-wing extremist violence offer evidence that such violence is motivated by grievances intensified by a perceived loss in status or by economic dislocations. This article moves away from an emphasis on grievances by turning to theories of ethno-nationalism and group conflict. Ethno-nationalism is in part driven by attitudes of dominant groups favoring ethnic exclusion, whereas group threat theories explain that ethnic diversity increases the salience of ethnic boundaries and fuels a collective response to group threat. Such threats encourage violence to contain this threat and restore dominance. Exclusionary attitudes and support for expanded gun rights in America further legitimize a culture of ethno-nationalism that encourages violent acts. I test these arguments with data from the Pew Research Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Extremist Crime Database on right-wing violence. The state-level and county-level results support the claim that rising ethnic diversity raises the rate and volume of right-wing violence significantly. State-level results also find that rising memberships in the National Rifle Association increase the rate of right-wing violence significantly.
The Numbers and Narratives of Alt-Right White Extremists in the US
Pamela is a Masters' student in Conflict and Terrorism at the University of Auckland in her second year currently studying Research Design and Humanitarian Intervention as well as undertaking a Dissertation in an aspect of Narrative and Information Warfare. This piece was written a year ago and has been re-edited and added to since.
Terrorism and Political Violence, 2014
States. This paper makes four contributions. First, we empirically test criminological theory in the context of terrorism by using routine activities to devise four core hypotheses to explain differences between the two types of victims. Second, our investigation uniquely includes a non-terrorist comparison group (i.e., victims of homicides committed by extremists for personal reasons like greed). Third, our study focuses on ideological victimization. Terrorism researchers have usually ignored victims because of the difficulty in accessing the necessary data. Finally, we also make a methodological contribution by showing that criminology can build upon the terrorism literature by utilizing open-sources. Using data from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), the results of a multivariate analysis partially supported the hypotheses, showing that RAT and LST offer empirically supported theoretical constructs that have the ability to differentiate between ideological and non-ideological homicides.
The Three Ps of Domestic Extremism in the United States
ICSVE Brief Reports, 2022
The question of the rise of domestic extremism in the United States is one which is regularly commented upon by journalists, political pundits, and scholars of numerous academic fields. The data supports a sharp rise in hate crimes over the past five years, including those directed at Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Violent extremist groups that have existed in the United States for decades if not centuries like the Ku Klux Klan and National Socialist Movement continue to gain members and sympathizers but are increasingly joined at rallies and protests, and in violent crime, by newer groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Notably, members of the latter two groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their actions during the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol; their violent attempt to keep former President Trump in power was one never seen since the end of the Civil War. What is it that has contributed to the observed rise in domestic extremism, in the United States in particular? Our own research, as well as that of others, has consistently shown that the making of a terrorist or violent extremist consists of four parts: the group, its violence-justifying ideology, social support for that ideology which may exist in one’s local community or online, and individual needs and vulnerabilities. For those living outside of active combat zones, such as those becoming radicalized in the United States, those individual needs and vulnerabilities often include those for belonging, dignity, meaning, purpose, and significance. This “lethal cocktail of terrorism” is a psychosocial one which applies equally to violent extremists of all ideologies, whether they are militant jihadists, white supremacists, incel shooters, single-issue terrorists, or those on the far left. Presently, we present an additional model which applies to the broader social milieu in the United States and has brought about the recent rise of domestic extremism described above. This model may appear to be sociological or political in nature, yet each of its components can affect the individual psychology of any American. Under these conditions, the ingredients of the lethal cocktail are made all the more potent, and any American can be at risk for radicalization to violent extremism. We have entitled this lethal cocktail-amplifying model the “3P” model of domestic extremism.