Comparative Politics Flashcards
What is comparative politics?
Sub-discipline of political science that asks causal questions about political outcomes, seeks answers of comparative significance.
It mostly asks why… (why did things turn out the way it did)
What kind of explanations does comparative politics often search for?
Causal explanations - why did it happen? - asks questions about political outcomes (e.g. why the French Revolution?)
Any questions of description are generally only preliminary to a search for causal explanation - and comparative politics does not pose normative/evaluative questions (i.e. what’s best)
What is a theory?
A theory is a set of logically consistent statements that tell us why the things we observe occur with a set of causal relationships between variables.
What is the dependent vs independent vs intervening variable?
Dependent variable - what one is trying to explain (successful or failed repression of mass uprising)
Independent variable - the cause(s) (revolutionary versus non-revolutionary regime origin)
Intervening variable - intermediate steps in a causal chain (basis for security service affiliation to regime)
What is deduction vs induction?
Deduction - The movement from more general to more specific. Move from theory to testable hypotheses and the confirmation or rejection of initial idea.
Induction - The movement from the specific to more general (generalisation). Observation comes first, patterns appear and then hypotheses are formulated to test it with the result being some general conclusions or theories.
What is epistemology?
Knowledge generating. The theory of knowledge and how to gain knowledge to achieve certain outcomes.
What is ontology?
Putting things into categories. Seeing the world as it actually is. Not trying to make it better but trying to explain it.
What is a causal mechanism?
An explanation of how a cause produces an effect - correlation is not causation
What is an example of a bottom-up model?
The cleavage model - parties are formed and sustained by social cleavages (primary aim is to promote the interests of their supporters)
What is an example of a top-down model?
The strategic actor model. Parties are formed by like-minded politicians - they aim to appeal to pivotal voters with the pursuit of getting into office over all (prioritised over policy)
What is a counterfactual?
Something that did not happen but could have… ways to test a hypothesis
What are the advantages of comparison?
-Provides meaningful contrast
-Promotes reflection in the role of external circumstances, not just the role of individuals
-Encourages formulation in generalisable terms, allowing for knowledge accumulation
-Etc… (test intermediate steps, distinguishes crucial elements within a complex web of factors…)
What can be some limits of comparative politics?
-Monocausality
-Endogeneity (systems internally decided by the system… e.g. electoral systems)
-Establishing internal validity (confidence in methodology that a causal relationship is really there)
-External validity (degree to which findings of a study can be applied to other situations - generalisability)
-Selection bias (case selection)
-Confirmation bias (confirming pre-conceived notions)
How can you address the issues with comparative politics?
-Clearly identify the variation you want to explain
-Define and measure key concepts and variables
-Compare quite similar or different systems (with as many factors constant as possible - isolate the one that matters)
-Study critical cases (pick most unlikely case - if it works then it will be even better elsewhere, pick most likely case - if it fails there then it will fail even harder in other situations)
-Show the causal mechanism (need to avoid assuming correlation is causation)
What are some of the key factors in shaping political preferences?
-Socialisation (e.g. family)
-Class (and economic standing)
-Education
How does class generally link to their view on economic politics?
The lower someone’s class position = in favour of left-wing economics (redistribution)
The higher someone’s class position = in favour of right wing economics (laissez-faire)
General and traditional link!!! Many exceptions, e.g. champagne socialists…
How is class and politics drifting? Do political parties traditionally tied to the working class still have a strong link?
Through a process known as class-party dealignment
Working class drifting from being in favour of economic distribution since the collapse of traditional industries in 80s and 90s.
Being working class is no longer indicative of voting labour, but more putting reform.
Why has there been a decline in class voting?
-Deindustrialisation (post-industrial transformation)
-Changes in the class structure (decreased size of the trad working class and the growth of a new service middle class)
-Changes in the party system (top down structuring of cleavages)
-Changing relationship between voters and class groupings
-Changing relationship between class groupings and political parties
-Voters now up for grabs (a new market for votes) - parties have more chance of attracting dealigned voters (right has moved to more social conservatism)
How can we explain the shift of the lower classes to new right-wing parties?
Economic: losers in modernisation and globalisation (i.e. loss of traditional jobs to abroad)
Political: distrust of and dissatisfaction with political elites
Cultural: hostile attitude towards immigrants
What is the biggest determiner in attitudes towards immigrants?
Education level.
Weak position in the labour market = anti-immigration (competitive threat theoretical model)
How can we explain the link between education levels and views on immigration?
Economic: egocentric economic evaluation (labour market competition theory) and socio-tropic economic evaluation
Cultural: immigrants have an impact on the national and cultural character of a society (higher-educated people tend to have higher self-esteem and confidence, and attach higher values to cultural diversity)
How can we often explain a link between a demographic factor with political views?
A cultural and/or economic explanation
In the UK how did education level link with voting patterns in 2024?
Lower level of education = more likely to vote reform or tory
Higher level of education = more likely to vote for labour, Lib Dem, or green
Gradient scale with the medium educated in the middle
How can we explain the link between education and a propensity to hold liberal attitudes?
Psychodynamic model: psychological security and control over own life (don’t need to control others)
Socialisation model: transmission and internationalisation of liberal values
Cognitive model: sophisticated reasoning
Is class still more important than education?
Arguably not - there is a declining relevance of class and a growing relevance of education
What is socialisation?
A lifelong process by which people form their ideas about politics and acquire political values.
Who are some key agents of socialisation?
Primary groups (individuals closest to you)…
-Family
-Peers/friends
Secondary groups (organisations…)
-Schools
-Mass media
-Church
What is the role of family in socialisation?
Family is the most important agent of socialisation. They are involved in both direct and indirect transmission.
Social learning theories - BUT there is a hypothesis that this is a spurious relationship? Parents and children share the same socio-economic background is the confounding variable
Are there differences in the strength of intergenerational transmissions of political attitudes?
Yes
-Daughters, sons, mothers and fathers all have different roles in socialisation.
-Depends of family’s level of political engagement
-Family’s educational resources
-Parents who hold similar partisanship are more influential (power of 2!)
Some revisionists of the family socialisation thesis suggest young people have an affect on the political views of their parents!!!
Do families often hold one political view?
Often, yes…
Party preference homogamy (form of marital homogamy): tendency to choose partners who are similar in various respects (class, education, race, age, religion, etc.)
Partners often also have mutual influence on each other.
What is a general conclusion over the role of big factors like social class, etc…?
There is a decline of long-term predispositions based on social position - there is now more of a market for the electorate that political parties can try and win and so there is a growing importance of short-term factors - such as candidate image and characteristics
Is the term ‘civil war’ used consistently?
No - especially not outside of academia.
Used as a metaphor for major (not necessarily violent) conflict
Euphemisms often used instead of the term - e.g. “the troubles”
Often semantically contested - one group’s civil war is another’s terrorist campaign
What is a common definition of civil war (Small and Singer)? Why is it good?
“Any armed conflict that involves (a) military action internal to the metropole, (b) the active participation of the national government, and (c) effective resistance by both sides.”
-Distinguishes CWs from interstate and extra-state wars (civil wars are intrastate)
-Distinguishes CWs from communal wars, pogroms… general wars with no state intervention
-Distinguishes CWs from state terror, mass killings, genocide, and other forms of civilian victimisation
What is another common conceptual definition of civil war?
A war including…
-Internal armed conflicts involving heavily armed rebel groups and frontlines (symmetric conflicts)
-Internal armed conflicts involving lightly armed rebel groups (insurgencies, guerrilla wars, asymmetric conflicts)
-Most cases of revolution
-Ethnic wars (assuming the state is an actor)
-Sustained peasant insurrections
How can civil wars be meaningfully sub-divided in different ways?
Centre-seeking civil wars - the rebels aim to overthrow the central government or substantially change the government (e.g. impose a new regime)
Separatist/secessionist civil wars - the rebels aim to secede and form their own state or join a different state, or the rebels aim at a greater degree of internal autonomy
There are several key differences between centre-seeking and separatist civil wars, such as…
Location - rebels aim to capture the capital vs fought in the periphery
Strength of rebel group - smaller/weaker groups rarely seek to overthrow the gov’t, but they may seek secession
What are the historical patterns of civil war?
Civil wars have been rising since the 1940/50s whilst extra state wars fell with civil wars by far the most prevalent - civil wars (with a low violence threshold) are around their historical peak in the modern period - 90s saw breakup of USSR and Yugoslavia and the 2010s saw increased extremism in the islamic world.
Where are intrastate conflicts most common?
The global south - Middle East, South/Southeast Asia and Africa
Which are more severe conflicts? Interstate, extra state or intrastate armed conflict
Interstate, then extra state then intrastate.
So… intrastate wars (often civil wars) are more prevalent but less severe - centre-seeking civil wars are more severe than territory-focused civil wars
What are the two main explanatory logics for civil wars?
-Grievance based explanations
-Opportunity based explanations
What is grievance theory?
The idea that grievances play a central role in the explanation of many civil wars. Grievance theories are motivation based (popular discontent causes violent mobilisation)
What is a possible limitation to grievance theory?
There are many forms of discontent, and not all give rise to civil wars. Grievance theorists therefore need to identify the kinds of discontent that likely lead to civil war.
What is often the most influential grievance?
Ethnic grievances - grievances of people with particular shared identities - can develop into civil war in the name of protection of, or increasing the power of, the group
How many civil wars are fought on ethnic lines?
Approx. half of centre seeking civil wars and practically all separatist civil wars (by definition)
Does ethnic diversity equal ethnic grievances?
No not necessarily - ethnic differences alone do not give rise to conflict (in many places ethnic groups coexist peacefully). There are different motivations, with political exclusion being one of the most influential.
What is the problem with nationalism (nationalism of a majority group) in relation to ethnic grievances?
Nationalism demands that ethnic likes should rule over ethnic likes and also demands the ideal of a ‘nation-state’ with political and national unity held in harmony.
The problem is that the number of ethnic groups in the world exceeds the supply of states (e.g. Kurds, Bretons, Basques… stateless).
What are the three different ethnic power constellations?
- Ideal nation-state - Group A (one group) in government in one state
- Power-sharing - Group A and B in government in one state
- Political exclusion - Group A in government and Group A and B in one state
What are the consequences of political exclusion?
-Violates the nationalism principle (makes one group feel alien in a state)
-Has concrete material and political disadvantages (e.g. ethnic favouritism in gov’t jobs, access to gov’t services, provision of ethnic rights such as language rights…)
-Perceptions of unjust treatment by the state leads to incentives to challenge the state (such as calls for autonomy or outright secession - i.e. separatism)
What are other grievances applicable to grievance theory?
-Horizontal inequalities (inter-group, maybe class, inequalities)
-Lack of regional autonomy
-Autonomy losses
-Violent repression by the state
What is the main idea of opportunity theory?
Motive is not a sufficient explanation of civil war - even highly aggrieved groups may not take up arms if they lack the opportunity to do so.
Opportunity theorists aim to identify the conditions which make rebellion possible - Civil war is likely where favourable opportunities for rebellion exist!
What kind of opportunities do opportunity theorists focus on?
-Structural/environmental factors
-Resources (available to potential rebels)
-Political processes (creating opening for political violence - e.g. contested election)
What is the insurgency model?
The idea that most post-1945 civil wars may be ethnic, but even more have taken the form of insurgencies.
Therefore, we should focus on understanding civil wars through the lens of insurgencies.
According to Fearon and Latin what are the three types of factors that are conducive to insurgency?
1 - Resources available to insurgents - insurgents need access to weapons and money to buy them. They also need a supply of recruits, and knowledge of how to run an insurgency
2 - Places to hide - e.g. inaccessible terrain or a cross-border sanctuary to hide from the government (used by ETA and IRA)
3 - State capacity - if the gov’t forces can reach into rural areas and potential places to hide then potential insurgents are subsequently deterred.
Are grievance and opportunity theories competitors?
Grievance scepticism tends to be based on ethno-demographic proxies of grievance, which at best are weakly related with the presence of intense ethnic grievances
Several established determinants of civil war have both a grievance and an opportunity interpretation
Logics of grievance and opportunity are intertwined; analogous to the classic principles of murder detection, rebellion needs both motive and opportunity
So no - when studying cases we should consider both grievance and opportunity, and often we will find aspects of both!
What is the distinction between a state, government and regime?
State - sovereign land with a government, territory and population (formalises political action)
Government - people with authority to govern over the state
Regime - form of government at a specific time
What is juridicial vs empirical statehood?
Juridicial statehood - legally recognised fully-self governing (official sovereign state recognised by the UN)
Empirical statehood - somewhere that effectively operates as an independent state though lacks the legal recognition of others (e.g. Somaliland) - we can investigate to what extent does the state control its claimed territory
What are the three levels of decline in a state?
State weakness - fails to execute and deliver the basic functions/services of the state to all parts of the state
State failure - descent into conflict or chaos
State collapse - ceases to exist
Is the concept of a state contested?
Yes - is it a structure, actor, instrument of government…?
Many asks where we can draw the line between the state and society and what distinguishes the state from all other sorts of political organisations.
What is key to Max Weber’s idea of the state?
Violence - it is the human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a territory
What is key to Charles Tilly’s idea of the state?
Coercion - states are coercion-wielding organisations that are distinct from other groups and exercise clear priority in some respects other organisations within substantial territories.
Do states shield citizens from evil?
States can shield us against racketeers and evil actors (e.g. exploitative economic actors, foreign states…) BUT the state can also be the most evil actor of all… (genocide, war, human rights abuses…)
Explain how the state can be perceived as an organised security racket…
Tilly argue that the state produces both the danger, and at a price, the shield against it as a racketeer - takes money from citizens in return for security though the state cannot be trusted to in turn not harm those that they supposedly protect
What is the bellicist theory of state formation?
It is the idea that wars (casus bellis) made states - war has been the chief occasion on which states have expanded and consolidated their power.
States have been formed over the use of violence against neighbours and civilians.
What were the essential minimum activities of the state (and one crucial compliment)?
All related to security…
State-making - attacking and checking competitors and challengers to state authority within its territory
Warmaking - attacking rivals outside the territory already claimed by the state
Protection - attacking and checking rivals of the rulers’ principal allies (whether inside or outside the state’s claimed territory)
Additional crucial component:
Extraction - drawing from its subject population to engage in the process of state-making, warmaking and protection
Which other terrains beyond their minimum activities have states ventured into?
Adjudication - settle disputes among members of the subject population
Production - control the creation and transformation of goods by the subject population
Distribution - intervention in the allocation of goods among members of the subject population
Bargaining - with civilian population over rights and freedoms
How did state building in Africa differ to that in Europe (what we have previously discussed)?
-Modern state did not grow organically but was imported to Africa
-Different political geography
-Post-colonial states not made amongst war but often adopted in a peaceful manner
Was there a non-territorial nature of power before the imposition of states on Africa?
Yes - land was in large supply with a low population density, no need to wage wars to acquire land. Warfare was there but often over people or treasures not land.
What are the three issues with the state weakness and failure discourses?
Promotes harmful representation (obscures colonial past, cements northern dominance and legitimises intervention)
Obscures alternative forms of order (like empirical statehood and informal - perhaps tribal - order)
Draws simplistic causal links between state weakness/fragility and violence (only a small fraction of weak states see violent conflict - multiple factors combine to cause onset of civil war) - strong and predatory states also contribute to war
What are the case study examples for alternative forms of order (alternative to Eurocentric state system)?
Somaliland - empirical state - effectively governs independently from Somalia after collapse of central Somali state
Afghanistan - informal order - political order in rural Afghanistan is maintained by self-governing, customary organisations - this informal governance is capable of providing public goods and the traditional order does not impede the development of the state
What is a case study of a parallel state (or rebelocracy)?
Kosovo - state like governance within Serbia
What are some examples of state in exile?
Gov’ts in exile in London during WW2 (Czech, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish…)
Rwandan Hutu refugee camps in Zaire/DRC in 90s
How has international state-building and conflict been different in the 21stC?
There has been the rise of the international post-conflict reconstruction complex with billions in post-conflict development aid committed and centuries old strong international institutions and NGOs providing aid.
BUT
Renewed fighting has overshadowed reconstruction and peace-building efforts in a range of countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan…)
What type of state-building was the 2003 invasion of Iraq?
Exogenous state building.
In 2003 there was a quick deposition of the old regime, but an inability to reconstruct a peaceful order after creating a violent security/power vacuum… was a failure in reconstruction
What did state-building in the DRC struggle with?
Legitimacy.
There were competing forms of order at local/ethnic levels, parties to conflict continued to manipulate official institutions to conflict era ends, and state institutions (police, army…) were predatory.
What were the attempts of state building in Somalia an example of?
Attempting to resuscitate a failed state.
There have been repeated int’l attempts to resuscitate the central state (in a federal form) despite Somaliland separatism, state-led violence… now Al-Shabaab militants are a continuous threat and the state doesn’t have full control of its territory.
What is South Sudan’s state building an example of?
State-building following secession
Left Sudan in 2011 after a referendum - peace short lived with 2013 civil war - demonstrates challenges of building a state from scratch in a post-conflict environment (struggled with national unity, infrastructure, governance, security and taxation)
What are some broad critiques of state building?
-Inherent tension between peace-building and state-making
-State building as a form of interventionism - legitimate or legitimate intrusion? (parallels between 1920s British colonialism in Iraq and 2000s state building)
-Neo-Weberian orthodoxy - there has been a focus on state capacity and institutions - and an OMISSION OF LEGITIMACY as central in state building (state institution more accountable to international standards than to own populations)
In sum what are two key problems with state building as a process…
1 - Fails to prevent a relapse into conflict
2 - Can directly contribute to renewed conflict and violence with a lack of focus on government legitimacy
What are the four dimensions of women’s representation?
Formal representation - institutional rules and procedures through which representatives are selected (i.e. electoral systems, parties, quotas… do they lend themselves to representing women)
Descriptive representation - number of representatives with a characteristic (women) elected to office
Substantive representation - when representatives act for the interests of a group (i.e. the ideas of women and what they do in office - could represent women well or not)
Symbolic representation - the feelings and attitudes that representatives evoke among citizens (women MPs as role models)
How can we explain women’s underrepresentation in politics? (two aspects - think economics)
Supply side explanations
Demand side explanations
Generally we can think of two decisions - the decision of the woman to run and the decision for them to actually be selected by others (party, electorate…)
What are the supply side explanations for female underrepresentation in politics?
Gender socialisation - may undervalue their political qualifications (when objectively they are just as qualified as men who run) and may perceive the environment as biased to men to begin with
Political ambition - less likely to run for office, less likely to have parents engage with them about politics or encourage the, and fewer role models of women in power
What are the demand side explanations for female underrepresentation in politics?
Electoral system differences - more women elected under PR (avoids zero-sum choice for parties and allow women to run alongside men) - depends on closed vs open lists though
Political parties - parties on the left tend to recruit and elect higher numbers of women and women party leaders tend to select more women candidates
Quotas or lack of - policies designed to fast-track women’s representation; require certain % of women to appear on candidate lists or in legislature/power
Voters - gender attitudes and stereotypes may make certain voters unwilling to vote for women
How do cultural factors and the media affect female representation?
Cultural factors - patriarchal/conservative religious practices exclude women and historical exclusion from political participation can influence attitudes about women’s role in politics
Media - tends to cover women’s personal lives, appearance, families, etc. instead of their policy/positions/credentials… reinforce gender stereotypes having a huge role on the perception of women
What is the idea of intersectionality in female representation?
Idea that there is not one single female experience of women - racism and sexism interact in complex ways, so do class, nationality, sexual orientation, age… women with multiple, intersecting identities can face multiple barriers to representation
Is female representation the same in nature in authoritarian and democratic systems?
No - in democracies women have the power to introduce policies - in authoritarian regimes women lack influencers they fall under the power of the dictator (often a man)
% representation is often similar - but actual power of women is hugely different
What are the difficulties in studying substantive representation? (reps acting in interest of women)
-What are women’s issues and how do we define them? (often based on western feminist issues, variation across geographical contexts) - healthcare, domestic violence…
-Women operate within political institutions - difficult to study their impact in isolation from these contexts
-Can a representative substantively represent women without descriptively representing them (i.e. can a man represent a woman through pushing women’s issues)
Is there a link between descriptive and substantive representation of women? (i.e. do women actually represent women’s issues better?)
-Research suggests that women in office tend to lead to the formation of women-friendly policies
-In the US, black politicians were found to be more intrinsically motivated to represent the issues of black voters than white politicians
Seems to be a connection between representatives of groups acting in the interest of the group they identify with.
Do women legislate differently?
Communication styles - research shows that women evidence arguments with more personal/emotional experience and are less adversarial (conflict-prone)
Co-sponsorship - women are more likely than men to collaborate on bill cosponsorship with other women in the legislature
Why might women advocate for policies that benefit women in office?
Gender socialisation - shared socialisation/experiences may shape the identities, opinions, perspectives, and interests of women in ways that are different to men
Linked-fate - idea that individual opportunities/outcomes are linked to the group as a whole
Electoral reward?
What are the issues with the presumption that women advocate for policies that benefit women in office?
Essentialisation is the idea that shared experiences directly lead to shared preferences, interests and goals.
Based on essentialisaiton we would think that all women share the same views on topics like reproductive rights.
BUT - this isn’t the case - there is variation amongst women across geographies and social groups
(HOWEVER - research does suggest that many women share similar experiences of exclusion, oppression and marginalisation that may shape their views)
Is there a link between descriptive and symbolic representation of women? (i.e. does the representation of women affect attitudes and feelings towards women?)
Engagement - mixed research on whether it makes a positive impact on engagement - some evidence that women’s representation increases political knowledge among men and women
Democratic satisfaction - more representation leads to increased satisfaction with the way democracy works
Legitimacy - equal presence of women in institutions increases legitimacy and trust in those institutions
Attitudes towards women - representation has a positive impact on the belief of citizens that women have the ability to govern
What are gender quotas
Gender quotas are policy measures that require a certain % of women to appear on a candidate lists, in the legislature, or in other positions of power - gained popularity in the 90s and now used in more than 130 countries.
Helps women overcome structural barriers.
What are the three types of gender quotas?
- Party quotas: voluntary measures adopted by individual parties; require a certain % of women to appear on party lists (ie: Labour’s all-women shortlists; most common in Europe)
- Quota laws: require all parties in a country to nominate a certain % of women to the ballot (ie: Argentina was first to adopt in 1991; most popular in Latin America)
- Political reservations: require a certain % of women to be elected to the legislature (ie: Iraq; tend to be used more in non-democratic countries)
How can quotas be implemented?
Thresholds - % of women required to appear on lists or number of seats reserved for women (most quotas around 30% - some increased to 50%)
Sanctions - consequences for non-compliance with the quota - e.g. fines or being blocked from running in districts where they do not comply (some use incentives or rewards on the flip side)
Placement mandates - require parties to place men and women in certain positions on the list (without them, parties can meet quotas but cluster women at the bottom of the list)
Electoral systems - placement mechanisms are hard to implement in non-PR systems (harder to enforce quotas in majoritarian systems)
What 4 things will affect quota implementation?
Country specific factors - PR systems are more likely to adopt quotas and left wing parties are more likely to adopt voluntary party quotas
Strategic incentives - some parties may benefit electorally from introducing quotas
Women’s movements - strong movements can lead to the adoption of quota measures (e.g. in Latin America)
Regional/international policy diffusion - countries in same region are likely to adopt similar types of quota measures, borrowing policy measures from neighbours - or could come from int’l pressure
Do quotas have the desired effects?
Quotas increase women’s representation, quotas also work to increase women’s access to leadership roles within the party.
Quota policies do not lead to less qualified candidates - they actually improve quality. Quota countries also tend to devote more attention to social justice issues in their manifestos.
Is terrorism easily defined?
No - scholars have grappled with this for centuries - groups often call opponents terrorists even if that is not technically true (e.g. Putin labels Ukraine as terrorists).
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
How can we best define terrorism?
A violent technique of psychological manipulation.
It is the use or threatened use of violence directed against victims selected for their representative or symbolic value to manipulate the perception and behaviour of a target audience.
Do the actual victims of terrorists matter to the goal of terrorism?
No - the victims themselves don’t matter but WHAT THEY REPRESENT. They are an instrument to convey a message.
What is the difference between radicalism and extremism?
Radicalism is the desire for sweeping political change via overthrowing or restructuring the political structures of the status quo without glorifying or necessarily resorting to violence.
BUT
Extremism is anti-status quo, but instead views politics as a struggle for supremacy and not peaceful cooperation
Is terrorism equivalent to radicalism or extremism?
No
Is ideology often used to categorise terrorism?
Yes - terrorism almost always has ideological motivations - subscribes to a systematic set of ideas and an articulated view of the world and how to change what is wrong with the world and who to target to do so.
What are the 5 traditional categories of terrorism (categorised by ideology)?
Ethno-nationalist
Anarchist
Left wing
Right wing
Religious
What were Rapoport’s four waves of terrorism?
- Anarchist wave (late 1800s to 1914)
- Anticolonial wave (1920s-60s)
- New left wave (60s-80s)
- Religious wave (80s-now)
Waves had their own distinct methodology and ideological drives.
It is in recent years becoming easier or harder to categorise terrorism with traditional ideologies?
Harder - ideological motivations are mixing with no clear single goal
E.g. 2022 NYC subway attack
Labels are becoming less relevant with the FBI director identifying a trend in which individuals are becoming motivated by “incoherent belief systems, combined with personal grievances”
What is composite violent extremism?
The idea that ideological motivations are converging in attacks, combining numerous motivations.
What are the four categories of composite violent extremism?
Ambiguous - extremists whose worldview is the product of an amalgamation of prejudices, grievances, and subcultures without any single coherent belief system/structure
Mixed - extremists whose worldview is the product of multiple distinct and discernible ideologies at relatively equal levels
Fused - extremists who have one clear main ideology but fused with other prejudices or grievances from other ideologies
Convergent - extremists who have one distinct ideology that has convergent prejudices and grievances with other ideologies - one extremist working with another because of a shared enemy (not because of a shared ideology)
Could you view anti-government extremism as a manifestation of composite violence extremism?
Yes you could (e.g. January 6th and Antifa’s actions when Trump was elected were both AGE)
Is Anti-government Extremism on the rise?
Yes - but it has existed throughout history - KKK, Anarchist wave of terrorism…
What is Anti-Government Extremism (AGE)?
Instances of extremism that primarily or consistently focus on government as a source or cause of perceived crises, where that focus on government is central to the worldviews of the actors in question.
What is Right-Wing AGE?
Extremism characterised by an Anti-Government vision centred on a mix of ideologies, including white nationalism/supremacy, antisemitism, extreme libertarianism, and a belief in an imminent societal collapse amongst other things
What is Left-Wing AGE?
It is mostly anarchist. It mobilises around themes such as anti-fascism, anti-racism, workers rights, environmental protection… amongst other things
What is the general geographical divide between RW and LW AGE?
Right-wing extremism is often most prevalent in Northern/Eastern Europe as well as the US and wider Anglosphere - left wing anti-government extremism is more common in Southern Europe and Latin America.
How can we divide the motivations of AGE into two broad camps?
Ideological AGE - broadly opposed to the government (or particular government)
AND
Issue-driven AGE - opposes a government because of that government’s stance/actions on an issue - it can come and go (January 6th rioters probably no longer AGE because Trump is now coming back to office)
What type of theories are often key to AGE? Why?
Conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories undermine the legitimacy of government, institutions, policies, and political opponents. Research shows that conspiracy theories are associated with a propensity for violence.
Often they entail a belief that a secret, powerful entity is manipulating events behind the scenes.
How do conspiracy theories relate to people pushing them towards AGE?
They make complex patterns of cause and effect in human affairs more comprehensible by means of oversimplification and reductionism
They rationalise people’s present difficulties and partially assuage their feelings of powerlessness
How does the role of conspiracy theories differ between RW and LW AGE?
They are more prevalent and pervasive amongst the RW. They reinforce distrust in government and justify violence for RW AGE… some examples are Qanon, the belief in a Zionist inter-governmental conspiracy, the Great Replacement Theory…
They exist amongst the anarchist left (e.g. techno-elites, zionist conspiracies…) but they are less structured.
Do attacks on politicians and representatives characterise AGE? What are some RW vs LW examples?
Yes - violent attacks, threats, plots, harassment…
RW examples: January 6th, attack on the Pelosi household…
LW examples: 19thC golden age of political assassinations…
Are RW or LW attacks on politicians more lethal in the modern age?
RW (except maybe in South America)
What is leaderless resistance in AGE?
A strategy of opposition that allows for and encourages individuals or small cells to engage in acts of political violence independent of any hierarchical leadership or network of support
What is accelerationism in AGE?
A violent strategy in which terrorism is used to hasten societal collapse by provoking reactions from authorities and exacerbating existing social tensions (original idea from Marx but now place an important part in far-right AGE thinking)
