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Articles

A test of Sprinzak’s split delegitimization’s theory of the life course of far-right organizational behavior

, , &
Pages 307-329
Published online: 31 Oct 2014
 

This article applies Sprinzak’s theory of split delegitimization to the American far-right. We examine a sample of 30 violent and 30 nonviolent far-right groups for each year of their existence, drawn from the Extremist Crime Database, and explore the violent and legal behavioral patterns over their lifecycle. Sprinzak hypothesized that far-right groups undergo a radicalization process through three stages, conflict of legitimacy, crisis of confidence, and crisis of legitimacy. He predicted that terrorism would occur at the peak of group radicalization or during the third stage. Results supported Sprinzak’s conceptualization of conflict of legitimacy and crisis of confidence stages. Groups initially selected nongovernment targets, but after experiencing disillusionment with the ruling regime, they equally attacked government and nongovernment targets. Importantly, prolonged and increasingly violent acts against government targets were not observed.

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Notes on contributors

Ashmini G. Kerodal

Ashmini G. Kerodal is a doctoral candidate in the Criminal Justice program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her academic interests include hate crimes, terrorism, and the unintended effects of counterterrorism policies.

Joshua D. Freilich

Joshua D. Freilich is a member of the Criminal Justice (CRJ) Department and the CRJ PhD Program at John Jay College. He is the Creator and Co-Director of the United States Extremist Crime Database, an open source relational database of violent and financial crimes committed by political extremists in the US. Freilich is a member of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center of Excellence. He is a member of START’s Executive Committee and a member of the Global Terrorism Database’s Advisory Board. Freilich’s research has been funded by DHS and the National Institute of Justice. His research focuses on the causes of and responses to terrorism, measurement issues, and criminological theory, especially environmental criminology and crime prevention.

Steven M. Chermak

Steven M. Chermak is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University and a lead investigator for the START. Dr Chermak’s research includes activities in the following areas: far-right extremism, the effectiveness of strategies used to prevent terrorism and crime, and the media’s role in relation to crime and terrorism issues. Other research has focused on terrorism and media coverage of terrorist activities, including depictions of the militia movement and the September 11 attacks. Current research includes research on the characteristics of lone wolf terrorism, differences between violent and nonviolent extremist groups, and county-level predictors of far-right violence.

Michael J. Suttmoeller

Michael J. Suttmoeller is an Assistant Professor at Missouri State University. He received his PhD from Michigan State University in Criminal Justice. His research interests include extremist and terrorist groups, terrorist group decline and death, extremist violence against the police and police organizations.

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