Social media enable broad and diverse publics to mobilize around a shared collective identity. In this article, the authors use social movement literature and studies of peace and conflict to foreground the role of platform-mediated communication in creating a national identity in a fragile state. We argue that, by affording activists with a possibility of public, yet anonymous interactions, social media may play a crucial role in conferring state legitimacy during a violent conflict. Investigating the case of Mariupol, Ukraine, where a small group of citizens employed social media to support and legitimize the Ukrainian state among the city population, the authors illuminate the use of new media affordances to construct a national identity among digitally networked publics, mobilizing support for a threatened state.
This chapter is about a particular form of right-wing extremism (RWE) in the U.S. that I refer to as the patriot/militia movement (P/M movement). This segment of RWE is more commonly referred to as the "Patriot movement" or the "militia movement." As I have stated elsewhere, I intentionally use the more clunky "patriot/militia" for two primary reasons.First, "patriot" carries a strong positive connotation in the United States: to call someone a patriot is to compliment them. I do not wish to imply-however slightly or incidentally-that those who are part of this movement are admirable patriots.Second, not all of the individuals and groups in this movement are militias in the sense of being hierarchical paramilitary organizations that deliberately imitate militaries, though some certainly are. 1This movement is defined by two closely related beliefs: the federal government (and possibly some state and local governments) are currently tyrannical or are quickly becoming tyrannical; and American patriots need to be ready to engage in conflict with that government to protect or restore traditional American rights. That conflict could begin anytime, and it could include a range of different types of action including an insurgency-style war.The patriot/militia movement is one of two subcategories of antigovernment extremism in the U.S., alongside sovereign citizens. 2 There is substantial overlap between these two categories: many participants in the patriot/militia movement entertain sovereign citizen ideas, particularly regarding esoteric ways of interacting with the political and legal systems to exempt themselves from governmental authority. 3 Unlike many individuals who are more squarely within the subcategory of sovereign citizens, though, those in the P/M movement focus less on those arcane legal theories and more on understanding and responding to a broad threat of tyranny.The archetypical type of organization within the P/M movement is the militia: an organization that adopts paramilitary authority structures, appearances, and activity. For example, the early militias 1 Sam Jackson, Oath Keepers: Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a Right-Wing Antigovernment Group (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), 17, https://cup.columbia.edu/book/oath-keepers/9780231550314. 2 Sam Jackson, "A Schema of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States," Policy Briefs (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism -The Hague, November 4, 2019), https://icct.nl/publication/a-schema-of-right-wing-extremism-inthe-united-states/.
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