Deepening the Explanation of Radical Flank Effects: Tracing Contingent Outcomes of Destructive Capacity

Ellefsen, Rune

doi:10.1007/s11133-018-9373-3

Cited by 13 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Recent studies of "extreme" or radical tactics show that movements whose activists threaten violence or property destruction are generally less successful at winning public support than movements that do not (6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Yet social movements are not homogeneous in the agendas they pursue nor in the tactics they employ (11,12). Instead, they are typically composed of an array of factions with varying agendas and employing diverse tactics.…”

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature on "radical flanks" addresses this question by asking how more radical factions impact the success of more moderate factions within the same movement, offering competing predictions about the direction of this impact (11)(12)(13)(14). The positive radical flank effect hypothesis predicts that the presence of a radical flank -a discrete activist group within a larger movement that adopts an agenda and/or uses tactics that are perceptibly more radical than other groups within the movement -will increase support for a more moderate movement faction.…”

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions

2022

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Social movements are critical agents of social change, but are rarely monolithic. Instead, movements are often made up of distinct factions with unique agendas and tactics, and there is little scientific consensus on when these factions may complement – or impede – one another's influence. One central debate concerns whether radical flanks within a movement increase support for more moderate factions within the same movement by making the moderate faction seem more reasonable– or reduce support for moderate factions by making the entire movement seem unreasonable. Results of two online experiments conducted with diverse samples (N = 2,772), including a study of the animal rights movement and a preregistered study of the climate movement, show that the presence of a radical flank increases support for a moderate faction within the same movement. Further, it is the use of radical tactics, such as property destruction or violence, rather than a radical agenda, that drives this effect. Results indicate the effect owes to a contrast effect: use of radical tactics by one flank led the more moderate faction to appear less radical, even though all characteristics of the moderate faction were held constant. This perception led participants to identify more with and, in turn, express greater support for the more moderate faction. These results suggest that activist groups that employ unpopular tactics can increase support for other groups within the same movement, pointing to a hidden way in which movement factions are complementary, despite pursuing divergent approaches to social change.

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Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Main Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions

2022

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“…For instance, a radical flank may have negative effects on public perceptions of the movement as a whole but still prompt concessions from governmental agencies. Similarly, Ellefsen (2018) noted that whether radical flanks help or harm the broader movement may vary over time. Extreme tactics may turn off observers in the short run, but over time the public may come to view moderate factions as reasonable alternatives to both the radical flank and the status quo.…”

Section: Limitations and Questions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we found that participants exposed to violence by antiracists were not more willing than others to state that they supported groups who protested antiracism nonviolently, offering suggestive evidence for the absence of either positive or negative radical flank effects. 9 On the other hand, recent work on radical flanks (Ellefsen 2018) suggests that we cannot simply ask whether the impact of radical flanks is positive or negative, because they may be negative in one arena and positive in another. For instance, a radical flank may have negative effects on public perceptions of the movement as a whole but still prompt concessions from governmental agencies.…”

Section: Limitations and Questions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Violent Protest Backfire? Testing a Theory of Public Reactions to Activist Violence

Simpson

Willer

Feinberg

2018

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

101

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How do people respond to violent political protest? The authors present a theory proposing that the use of violence leads the general public to view a protest group as less reasonable, a perception that reduces identification with the group. This reduced identification in turn reduces public support for the violent group. Furthermore, the authors argue that violence also leads to more support for groups that are perceived as opposing the violent group. The authors test this theory using a large ( n = 800) Internet-based survey experiment with a politically diverse sample. Participants responded to an experimental scenario based on recent violent confrontations between white nationalist protesters and antiracist counter-protesters, allowing the authors to study whether violent protest would reduce public support even when used against a widely reviled group. The authors found that the use of violence by an antiracist group against white nationalists led to decreased support for the antiracist group and increased support for the white nationalist group. Furthermore, the results were consistent with the theorized causal process: violence led to perceptions of unreasonableness, which reduced identification with and support for the protest group. Importantly, the results revealed a striking asymmetry: although acts of violence eroded support for an antiracist group, support for white nationalist groups was not reduced by the use of violence, perhaps because the public already perceives these groups as very unreasonable and identifies with them at low levels. Consistent with this interpretation, the authors found that self-identified Republicans, a subset of the sample that reported less extremely negative views of white nationalists, showed reduced support for white nationalists when they engaged in violence.

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“…There is a "denial of the victim," where the offender vilified the farmer into an oppressor who deserved to be subjected to crime. Then there is the "appeal to higher loyalties," when the offender claimed that they needed to save the animals because of alleged negligence and/or abuse, personal reasons (e.g., promoting "veganism"; Freeman, 2010), or loyalty to their organization (Schoultz & Flyghed, 2016) and/or additional causes other than animal rights (Ellefsen, 2018). And finally, there is the "denial of injury," as when activists argued that they had only entered through unlocked doors and as such had caused no damage to anyone (as it was argued during the "Pig scandal" in 2009).…”

Section: Discussion Of the Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crimes Against Animal Production: Exploring the use of Media Archives

Ceccato

Abraham

Lundqvist

2021

International Criminal Justice Review

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Swedish media have revealed an increase in crimes against animal production (CAAP) in the last decade. We investigate the nature of such crimes (especially against mink, pig, and rabbit farms), with a focus on those crimes whose suspects are animal rights groups by utilizing data from media archives from 2009 to 2019. Newspaper articles show that while vandalism and trespassing are often committed against mink farms, property crimes occur more often against pig and rabbit farms. Because there are indications that crime suspects are not a homogeneous group and express different motivations to commit CAAP, a multipronged approach is needed to prevent CAAP. The use of newspaper articles from media archives has proven to be successful for obtaining a general perspective of CAAP, but it is limited for capturing crime incidence or for investigating CAAP spatiotemporal nature when using geographical information systems. The automated usage of digital media archives should be further explored and critically assessed in future research in criminology.

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Deepening the Explanation of Radical Flank Effects: Tracing Contingent Outcomes of Destructive Capacity

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions

Radical flanks of social movements can increase support for moderate factions

Does Violent Protest Backfire? Testing a Theory of Public Reactions to Activist Violence

Crimes Against Animal Production: Exploring the use of Media Archives

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