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  Former Extremists in North American Research

  Ryan Scivens, Steven Windisch, and Pete Simi

  "In what follows, we explore how researchers studying key issues in terrorism and extremism studies have incorporated formers into their work by tracing current trends in the empirical research in a North American context. First, we examine how those relying on interviews with formers have uncovered a complex web of overlapping push and pull factors that predispose extremist onset. Second, we explore how the use of formers to understand radicalization processes has provided valuable insight that would not have been available through secondary sources. Third, we discuss how formers have better informed our understanding of the processes of leaving extremism. Last, we describe some of the ways that formers have informed research on combating extremism. Highlighted throughout this chapter are key gaps in the empirical literature and suggestions for progressing research. But before proceeding, it is necessary to outline how we conceptualize “former extremists.” They are individuals who at one time in their lives subscribed to and/ or perpetuated violence in the name of a particular extremist ideology and have since publicly and/ or privately denounced violence in the name of a particular extremist ideology. In short, they no longer identify themselves as adherents of a particular extremist ideology or are affiliated with an extremist group or movement."

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  Using Social Media Tools to Contribute to and Challenge Gendered Violence

  Victoria Carty

  This chapter examines how information and communication technologies, or ICTS, serve as platforms for sexual harassment and violence as well as forums in which to trace and challenge bullying and violent behaviors. The chapter offers several brief case studies that occurred between 2012 and 2017, emphasizing the harmful role played by ICTs as well as the role of digital traces in the collection of evidence, and the development of hybrid forms of activism to hybrid forms of activism. It begins with an overview of social movement theory, addressing how the digital revolution affects collective behavior, and how this has impacted contentious politics regarding social justice issues. This is followed by an assessment of issues regarding sexting and bullying among teenage females and members of the LGBT community. The chapter provides examples of the spillover effect as online campaigns often turn into local and international protests in public spaces, illustrating the effectiveness of hybrid forms of activism. Finally, examples of tactics used by activists to challenge a range of forms of misogyny are examined.

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  Men of Money: Elite Masculinities and the Neoliberal Project

  Lynn Horton

  In this book, sociologist Lynn Horton explores how the most dynamic sectors of the global economy—finance and technology—are shaping new forms of elite masculinity. She offers fresh insights into the often overlooked links between economic inequalities and the identity politics of gender and race. Through analysis of the lives and discourse of utra-visible male billionaires, Horton examines how extreme accumulations of wealth are both imbued with gendered celebrity and moral authority and harshly contested. She identifies the ways neoliberalism as an ideological project, advanced by elite-funded networks of think tanks and advocacy groups, draws on such masculinities to amplify and naturalize market-centered assumptions, values, and practices. Gender systems—relational and ranked constructs of masculinity/femininity—permeate neoliberal discourse of markets, the state, and the household. Horton also details the tensions and ties between technocratic elite masculinities which eschew open sexism and discrimination and rightwing populist mobilization of gendered and racialized anti-elite discourse.

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  More Than Walking Away: Barriers to Disengagement Among Former White Supremacists

  Steven Windisch, Pete Simi, Kathleen M. Blee, and Matthew DeMichele

  In recent years, disengagement from violent extremism has become an emerging field of inquiry with a considerable effort focused on push and pull factors that compel exit. Much less research, however, examines the obstacles that hinder these individuals’ disengagement. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life-history interviews with 91 former US white supremacists, we examine the unfolding nature of disengagement. Despite the desire to leave extremism behind, participants discussed numerous barriers that delayed the exit process, including connections to the white supremacist social identity, lifestyle, and ideology. We conclude with suggestions for future research and recommendations for practitioners addressing terrorism prevention initiatives.

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  Ethnographic Terminalia: Co-curation and the Role of the Anecdote in Practice The Ethnographic Terminalia Collective

  Stephanie Takaragawa, Trudi Lynn Smith, Fiona P. McDonald, Kate Hennessy, and Craig Campbell

  Ethnographic Terminalia has worked in a collaborative curatorial mode aimed at developing and fostering space for anthropology and art interactions since 2009. The anecdote has been critical for enabling and sustaining the collaborative labour. This chapter shows how sharing anecdotes, what one sometimes call anecdoteing, is generative of co-action and care. It participates in the reconstitution of shared memories laced with the sustained practices of observing and listening. The chapter unpacks the sociality and complexity of anecdotes within the collective action of the anecdoteing practices of the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective that draw from curatorial opportunities for shared remembering, and at other times the reality of collective forgetting. In the continuous work of care and maintenance that goes into collective curation, moments of interpellation help to generate group solidarity because they also work to generate collective memories and tactics. The internal and uncommunicated narratives of individuals with a shared experience require moments of reconstruction, representation and reflection.

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  Evaluating Survey Measures Using the ARDA's Measurement Wizard

  Christoper Bader and Roger Finke

  "This chapter introduces a new resource for exploring and evaluating the survey items used in previous surveys, the Measurement Wizard, which allows for quick comparisons of survey items measuring the same concept. This resource offers a customized metadata archive that gives immediate access to thousands of questions from hundreds of surveys and provides an online tool for finding, comparing, and evaluating survey items. The majority of the chapter is devoted to exploring a few examples of what we have found using this new metadatabase and software tool and demonstrating how even subtle shifts in question wording, response categories, or survey design can result in major changes in outcomes. Using the Measurement Wizard tool (and others), we can learn from past surveys to design better measures for the future."

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  Introduction to Mobilizing Public Sociology: Scholars, Activists, and Latin@ Migrants Converse on Common Ground

  Victoria Carty

  "[I]n this text, we open up space for migrants to give testimony to their own struggles and to inform us about solutions to the dilemmas they face on a daily basis. By hearing each other's stories and perspectives on issues, we see the humanity in all of us, which can lead to learning experiences that are horizontal and transformative in nature."

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  Preface to "Mobilizing Public Sociology: Scholars, Activists, and Latin@ Migrants Converse on Common Ground"

  Victoria Carty, Daniele C. Struppa, Jerry Price, and Kevin William Vann

  "This volume is the product of a conference, 'Breaking Borders: Dialoguing on Immigration,' that was held at Chapman University in Orange, California, in April 2015... Below are samples of commentary by three of our distinguished conference speakers: Daniele Struppa, the president (then chancellor) of Chapman University; Jerry Price, Chapman's vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students, and Kevin William Vann, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County, one of the largest diocese in the United States."

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  Women and Microfinance in the Global South: Empowerment and Disempowerment Outcomes

  Lynn Horton

  Originally conceived as small-scale loans allowing impoverished women to invest in informal sector economic opportunities, microfinance programs have grown rapidly across the globe over the past two decades to become the most common development tool used to empower women in low- and middle-income countries. Women and Microfinance in the Global South incorporates a meta-synthesis of thirty qualitative empirical cases from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to explore the links between microfinance and women's empowerment, questioning how microfinance facilitates the economic and socio-political empowerment of women. The theoretical framework assesses both positive and negative outcomes of microfinance at the grassroots level, considering how such market-based interventions intersect with patriarchal beliefs and practices, and analyses the different mechanisms through which microfinance can empower or disempower women.

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  Disaster Through a Gender Lens: A Case Study from Haiti

  Lynn Horton

  Until recently, disaster research and disaster relief practices have been looked upon with a gender-blind eye, with the male perspective taken as universally representative. However, scholars have begun applying a gender lens to focus on the difference in impact on and experiences of the different genders. This chapter explores the characteristics of a gender approach and explains why it is essential when preparing for and responding to disasters, and how gender-sensitive policies have been hampered in the past. It uses the 2010 earthquake in Haiti as a case study to show how broader socioeconomic and cultural contexts have highlighted gender weaknesses in the response and recovery effort, and offers steps forward to more equitable treatment.

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  Women’s Movements in Latin America

  Lynn Horton

  "The trajectory of women's mobilization in contemporary Latin America incorporates both important gains and ongoing challenges... The chapter first explores mobilization of women in the 1970s and 1980s against authoritarian regimes and in favor of nationalist, class-based causes. It examines how women's experiences of political opportunity structures, movement recruitment, framing, and identity-linked grievances have differed from those of male-dominated movements."

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  American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate

  Peter Simi and Robert Futrell

  This second edition of the acclaimed American Swastika provides an up-to-date perspective on the white power movement in America. The book takes readers through hidden enclaves of hate, exploring how white supremacy movements thrive nationwide and how we can work to prevent future violence. Filled with powerful case studies, interviews, and first-person accounts, the book explains the differences between various hate groups, then shows how white supremacy groups cultivate their membership through Aryan homes, parties, rituals, music festivals, and online propaganda.

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  Introduction to Scholars and Southern California Immigrants in Dialogue: New Conversations in Dialogue

  Victoria Carty

  Immigration has been a contested issue for decades. This distinctive volume of essays on Southern Californian immigration is inspired by Michael Burawoy’s call for academic consideration to be more open and accessible to people in what he calls “public sociology.” The essays in Scholars and Southern Californian Immigrants in Dialogue: New Conversations in Public Sociology bridge the gap between scholars and undocumented persons themselves in an interdisciplinary and vibrant dialogue. The conversations include sociologists, lawyers, and community and religious leaders, alongside

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  'Paranormal Science' from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenisation

  Andrea Molle and Christoper Bader

  "In this chapter we argue that the current popularity of paranonnal topics, in particular ghosts, 'monsters' (such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster), UFOs and UFO abductions, can be partially traced to key changes in the discourse about paranormal subjects since the 1970s. These changes have produced a paranormal 'product' that can be easily experienced by a wide variety of people and in this chapter we explore how American-exported paranormal 'products' have been impacting a country outside of the anglosphere: Italy."

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  Cycles of Right-Wing Terror in the United States

  Peter Simi

  "The goal of this chapter is twofold. The current obsession with Islamic jihadi terrorism has a blinding effect on the conception of terrorism, including, ultimately, how society responds to terrorism. This chapter is intended to add to the dialogue about other types of terrorist threats by focusing on right-wing extremism... Secondly, this chapter is an effort to assess empirically the dynamics and patterns of US right-wing terrorism by comparing two recent waves as well as examining the current status of right-wing terrorism."

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  Bridging Contentious and Electoral Politics: MoveOn and the Digital Revolution

  Victoria Carty

  Netroots organizations are re-defining political struggle by providing the resources and environment necessary for political mobilizing, and are affecting the ways that parties and traditional groups now campaign, recruit, and fundraise. While there is no clear consensus in the social movement literature regarding information communication technology's (ICT's) influence on participation on political participation, campaigns, and parties, or on social movement participation more broadly, there is substantial agreement that the Net has increased information available for citizens and has changed the capacity for mobilization. The key question is if (and if so how) the increasing availability of information and more efficient mobilizing tactics enabled by the Internet translates into motivation, interest, and participation. As an electronic social movement organization (SMO), MoveOn has become one of the most successful advocacy operations in the digital era. This paper examines ways in which MoveOn has used the Internet and alternative forms of grassroots mobilization to fuse contentious politics with institutional means of reform via the electoral process. A case study of MoveOn is relevant to broader arguments regarding how the Internet is re-defining our understanding of mobilization and participatory politics, and demonstrates a shift in contentious politics and protest. The findings support the arguments in the literature that information sharing electronically can lead to a more informed citizenry, yet goes beyond previous research by suggesting that this refers not only to those that are initially politically aware, but also to otherwise uninformed or disengaged citizens (who have access to the Internet). This analysis also challenges previous research that asserts that there is little or no relationship between Internet use to obtain political information and political participation.

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  Introduction to America's Four Gods: What We Say about God and What That Says About Us

  Paul Froese and Christoper Bader

  Despite all the hype surrounding the "New Atheism," the United States remains one of the most religious nations on Earth. In fact, 95% of Americans believe in God--a level of agreement rarely seen in American life. The greatest divisions in America are not between atheists and believers, or even between people of different faiths. What divides us, this groundbreaking book shows, is how we conceive of God and the role He plays in our daily lives.

  America's Four Gods draws on the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and illuminating survey of American's religious beliefs ever conducted to offer a systematic exploration of how Americans view God. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader argue that many of America's most intractable social and political divisions emerge from religious convictions that are deeply held but rarely openly discussed. Drawing upon original survey data from thousands of Americans and a wealth of in-depth interviews from all parts of the country, Froese and Bader trace America's cultural and political diversity to its ultimate source--differing opinions about God. They show that regardless of our religious tradition (or lack thereof), Americans worship four distinct types of God: The Authoritative God--who is both engaged in the world and judgmental; The Benevolent God--who loves and helps us in spite of our failings; The Critical God--who catalogs our sins but does not punish them (at least not in this life); and The Distant God--who stands apart from the world He created. The authors show that these four conceptions of God form the basis of our worldviews and are among the most powerful predictors of how we feel about the most contentious issues in American life.

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  Acting in Good Faith: An Economic Approach to Religious Organizations as Advocacy Groups

  Anthony J. Gill and Steven J. Pfaff

  "Advocacy groups are all the rage! Over the past two decades, a new cottage industry has erupted in academia examining the seemingly explosive growth in new social movements, advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that has occurred in Western industrialized nations and several developing nations as well. Many of these movements and NGOs have crossed international boundaries, feeding the notion that globalization is eroding boundaries between people all around the world. This literature certainly has added to our knowledge of how advocacy groups originate and operate. But curiously missing from these recent studies has been any discussion of what amounts to the world’s most common, oldest, and largest advocacy bodies – religious organizations."

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  The Religious Divide: Why Religion Seems to Be Thriving in the United States and Waning in Europe

  Steven Pfaff

  "In the decades following the Second World War, most social scientists expected convergence among the Western industrial democracies. Modernization was expected to bring prosperity and opportunity, initiating a “culture shift” to posttraditional values and lifestyles.

  However, in recent years observers have remarked on a growing divide between Europeans and Americans. This divergence may be nowhere greater than in the religious sphere. While faith is loudly proclaimed and a bustling diversity of religious organizations jostles for attention in all arenas of public life in the United States, the European Union (EU) is described as thoroughly secularized, comprised of societies in which religion occupies an evershrinking private role."

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  An Extreme Response to Globalization: The Case of Racist Skinhead Youth

  Peter Simi and Barbara Brents

  "In this chapter we argue that a global dissemination of skinhead style allowed local youth across the United States (and in various other countries) to adopt what was originally a British youth subculture... Although skinhead origins were uncoordinated reactions to globalizing trends, the subsequent growth of the skinhead movement was fostered by specific and conscious actions on the part of skinhead activists to global technologies in order to grow the movement."

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  Alien Attraction: The Subculture of UFO Contactees and Abductees

  Christoper Bader

  Bader details the history of alien contact and abduction stories, then probes into the two sides of the UFO subculture: contactees vs. abductees. Contactees tend to view alien encounters positively and often imbue them with themes of the sacred, while abductees report nonconsensual and negative encounters, often involving humiliating medical procedures. He delves into the different types of aliens reported by those who claim to have made contact, as well as claims of inserted implants and breeding experiments. Finally, he examines the evolution of the UFO subculture and the growing reflection on mankind's relationship to its supposed alien visitors, as well as the sociological factors that draw people into the UFO subculture.

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  Transnational Organizing and the Race to the Bottom: Labor Struggles and Globalization from Below

  Victoria Carty

  The two current trends of democratization and deepening economic liberalization have made Latin American countries a ground for massive defensive mobilization campaigns and have created new sites of popular struggle. In this edited volume on Latin American social movements, original chapters are combined with peer-reviewed articles from the well-regarded journal Mobilization. Each section represents a major theme in Latin American social movement research. Original chapters discuss the Madres de Plaza de Mayo movement in Argentina and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Also included in the book's coverage of the region's major movements are los piqueteros and ant-isweatshop labor organizing. This is the first study to focus closely on the related issues of neoliberal globalization, democratization, and the workings of transnational advocacy networks in Latin America.

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  Hate Groups or Street Gangs?: The Emergence of Racist Skinheads

  Peter Simi

  "This chapter examines the early development of Southern California skinheads (1981-1985) in relation to the larger sociohistorical context of gang formation. Racist skinheads are shown to parallel conventional gangs along three dimensions: (1) organizational structure, (2) territoriality and group conflict, and (3) participation in nonspecialized criminal activity."

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  European Farmers and Their Protests

  Evelyn Bush and Peter Simi

  "In this chapter, we explore how the establishment of the European Union has influenced the face of contentious politics within European agriculture. Specifically, we analyze agricultural protests that occurred between 1992 and 1997, in order to gain a better understanding of how national governments and citizens have responded to changes brought about by European integration....In particular, we are interested in the forms that European farmers' protests have taken, with an eye for evidence of 'Europeanization,' 'domestication,' and 'transnationalization' of protest. Our results provide a picture of the forms Europeans' farmers protests have taken since the MacSharry reforms in 1992."

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  Resisting Globalization: Notes on the Seattle Uprising

  Steven Pfaff

  "The world seems to have been startled by recent events in Seattle. Between November 29th and December 3rd the city was gripped by unexpectedly powerful protests against the World Trade Organization meeting in the city. By now the conflict and chaos into which the conference descended - both in the streets outside the Washington State Convention Center and within it - are widely acknowledged. Not only did the WTO fail to agree upon an agenda for the next round of international trade liberalization and left the city in frustration, but Seattle presented a picture of urban protest rarely seen since the days of the Vietnam war. Images of Seattle Police, King County Sheriffs, State Troopers and National Guardsmen dressed in riot gear, helmets and gas masks firing tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets into the ranks of largely peaceful - if uncooperative - protesters flashed around the world. WTO delegates expressed anger and befuddlement at the disruption these noisy exercises in democracy were generating, while editorials in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal railed against the 'Seattle zanies,' anarchists, later-day hippies, and other allegedly misinformed opponents of free trade that were spoiling the important work of the organization."