Race, Ideology, and Attitudes Towards Violent Extremism

• In Event: Violence, Extremism, and White Identity

Abstract

The terrorism literature has produced many valuable and consequential insights however it all leaves unexamined a big assumption: that the label of terrorism is not up for debate. Research on terrorism begins with the understanding that the terrorist act is understood to be such by all involved. At the level of international terrorism-where attacks are conducted by groups that are hostile to foreign states-this assumption is not often problematic as it is the entire state that is being targeted and terrorized. The rise of domestic terrorism in the US however, challenges this assumption as the feelings of terror are not equally intended for all domestic audiences. As evidenced in the news cycles and public milieu of the last two years, not all violent attacks are equally perceived. Our research asks: how does the average citizen decide if what they are experiencing is terrorism? We argue that perceptions of terrorism and violent extremism are not only far from objective, but that they are driven by the relationship between perpetrator, victim, and observer. Specifically, our study is interested in how race and race supporting ideologies (i.e., White Supremacy) mediate perceptions of threat. We conduct two distinct survey experiments. First, a series of conjoint experiments are used to evaluate the impact of perpetrator race, citizenship status, target of the attack, and motive. Second, we present respondents with one of eight vignettes describing a scenario of ideologically motivated violence, varying the name of the perpetrator, their citizenship status, and the success or failure of the violent plot. Our analyses of these two experiments present a nuanced picture how feelings of ‘patriotism’ influence how violence is perceived and perpetrators punished.

Authors

• Victoria Gurevich, The Ohio State University

• Christopher F. Gelpi, The Ohio State University