Comparing American perceptions of post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan and transnational violence

Abstract

Recently, public debates have questioned whether or not the American government responds differently to terrorism by white, right-wing, Americans. This article examines a historical period in which similar dynamics were on display in state responses to the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Irish-American Fenians, and anarchists from 1860 to 1920. This history suggests that political officials responded to these groups more on the basis of ideas than their actual levels of violence, including discourses of Americanism shaped by ideology, nativism, and racism. Successful claims to ‘Americanism’ lent the KKK a sense of familiarity that led it to be seen as less of a threat to ontological security, even as it posed a significant threat of physical violence. In contrast, the ideologically subversive and foreign anarchists were responded to more severely, despite being responsible for far fewer deaths and injuries than the KKK. This history suggests that American counter-terrorism has been influenced by factors of racial and national belonging in the past, and provides significant context for the consideration of current debates about responses to right-wing groups.

Race, Religion, and the Echoes of Status Insecurity in US Foreign Policy

“…Third, and related, we argue that there are echoes of historically deep racial politics and status insecurities that help suggest, if not fully explain, evangelical support for Trump’s white nationalist politics. The paper thus concludes with some implications for both ontological security studies, where race has only recently been featured (see de Leon 2020; Newell, 2020; Vieira, 2018), and for 21st century US foreign policy. For the latter, we argue that the “Jacksonian” interpretations of Trump’s foreign policy perspective (Mead, 2017), and that of his base, need to more centrally reckon with anxieties over race and challenges to racial hierarchies in the 21st Century.…”