Who is more violent in extremist groups? A comparison of leaders and followers

Abstract

Few prior studies have examined the extent to which the behavior and characteristics of political extremists are related to their position within radical groups. In this paper we concentrate on one of the most fundamental distinctions in groups: that between leaders and followers. Our main goal is to investigate the comparative propensity of leaders and followers to engage in political violence. In a sample of individuals who have committed ideologically motivated political crimes in the United States (N = 1,331) we found that even though leaders were more ideologically committed to the group's goals and ideologies, they were at the same time less likely to engage in violent acts. Moreover, we found that leaders in radical criminal organizations shared many characteristics with leaders in noncriminal organizations. Specifically, in comparison to followers, they were more often male, older, and they were more likely to belong to an ethnic majority. We consider implications for future research and policy of the fundamental conclusion that compared to leaders, followers in terrorist organizations are more likely to engage in violent acts.

Distress and retaliatory aggression in response to witnessing intergroup exclusion are greater on higher levels of collective narcissism

“…Better understanding of these consequences is important to elucidate social identity processes behind distress of social marginalization and radicalization toward political violence. For example, leaders of extremist organizations are rarely personally marginalized (Jaśko & LaFree, 2020), but they evoke vicarious pain of exclusion of the in‐group to mobilize followers (Ginges & Atran, 2011; Kruglanski et al., 2013). Only some members of marginalized social groups become mobilized toward political violence.…”

Measuring extremist archetypes: Scale development and validation

“…We compared the five-factor solution from Study 1 to alternative solutions. Most of the research that differentiates between different types of extremists does so by focusing on a leader-follower distinction [e.g., 5 ]. Hence, we compared the five-factor model to a two-factor model differentiating between the leader (i.e., all leader items loading on the first factor) and the follower (the remaining four archetypes items loading on the second factor).…”

“…They often occupy leadership roles, are less inclined to use violence themselves, and may play an important role in radicalizing others. The existence of this archetype is supported by a recent empirical study demonstrating that even though leaders are more ideologically committed to the group’s goals and ideology, they are at the same time less likely to engage in violent acts [ 5 ]. The “fellow traveler” extremist is driven by a need for belonging, friendship, and acceptance.…”

The role of vulnerable environments in support for homegrown terrorism: Fieldwork using the 3N model

“…Then, they suffer a cognitive opening (Wiktorowicz, 2004) while they become vulnerable to radical narratives and identities. Therefore, a recruiter could take advantage of the situations and try to recruit these youths (Jasko & LaFree, 2020;Trujillo & Moyano, 2019).…”