Leaderless Resistance and Ideological Inclusion: The Case of the Earth Liberation Front

Joosse, Paul

doi:10.1080/09546550701424042

Cited by 50 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The group spray painted "ELF" and "Fat, Lazy Americans" at the dealership. The ELF and ALF groups represented some of the most media savvy groups in this study and their habit of claiming their acts and their high Web visibility aided their comparatively high media orientation score (Joosse, 2007). Their position as the first and second highest terrorist groups was also noteworthy when their 0 average injury and fatality rate was considered.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Measuring media oriented terrorism

Surette

Hansen

Noble

2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Measuring media oriented terrorism

Surette

Hansen

Noble

2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…The fact that we find that our results hold in the S1 Appendix even after dividing our sample into pre and post-internet periods tentatively suggests that these divergent dynamics may remain even after the rise to prominence of internet communications among both violent and nonviolent groups. Given governments’ disproportionate targeting of violent environmental groups for arrest and prosecution, a second and related explanation offered by the literature suggests that the prospects of this form of scrutiny can more generally compel violent groups to disproportionately favor decentralized leadership strategies, so as to ensure that individual arrests and infiltrations do not adversely affect the broader organization [30–32]. Taken together, these explanations are thus consistent with a commonly noted (e.g., [64, 65]) tradeoff faced by dark networks in choosing between increased effectiveness (via the use of electronic communications) and avoiding detection (via the favoring of face-to-face communication over electronic mediums), and imply for our application that violent UK environmental organizations may favor the latter strategy when considering collaboration with like-minded groups.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The logic to this alternate expectation is twofold. First, the government’s targeting of violent environmental groups for arrest and prosecution can often compel such groups to pursue decentralized leadership strategies so as to ensure that one group, cell, or member’s capture does not adversely affect the larger organization [30–32]. Second, the illegal and controversial tactics used by violent environmental groups likewise leave these groups wary of using formal mechanisms to communicate and/or coordinate across large distances, e.g.…”

Section: Research Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Spatial Properties of Radical Environmental Organizations in the UK: Do or Die!

Almquist

Bagozzi

2016

PLoS ONE

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Radical environmental groups and their members have a wide and varied agenda which often encompasses both local and global issues. In their efforts to call attention to environmental problems, communicate with like-minded groups, and mobilize support for their activities, radical environmental organizations also produce an enormous amount of text, which can be used to estimate the complex communications and task-based networks that underlie these organizations. Moreover, the tactics employed to garnish attention for these groups’ agenda can range from peaceful activities such as information dissemination to violent activities such as fire-bombing buildings. To obtain these varied objectives, radical environmental organizations must harness their networks, which have an important spatial component that structures their ability to communicate, coordinate and act on any given agenda item. Here, we analyze a network built from communications and information provided by the semi-annual “Do or Die” (DoD) magazine published in the UK over a 10 year period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We first employ structural topic model methods to discover violent and nonviolent actors within the larger environmental community. Using this designation, we then compare the spatial structure of these groups, finding that violent groups are especially likely to engage in coordination and/or communication if they are sufficiently close, but exhibit a quickly decreasing probability of interaction over even a few kilometers. Further, violent and nonviolent groups each have a higher probability of coordination with their own group than across groups over even short distances. In these respects, we see that violent groups are especially local in their organization and that their geographic reach is likely very limited. This suggests that nonviolent environmental groups seek each other out over both large and short distances for communication and coordination, but violent groups tend to be highly localized.

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“…When such communications are impeded, agency loss is inevitable as lower-level members are compelled to act 53. See Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1999;Gunaranta 2002;Hoffman 2003;Joosse 2007;Greenberg, Wechsler, and Wolosky 2002;and Kaplan 1997. 54. See Lake and McCubbins 2006;andGould 2003.…”

Section: Terrorism As a Principal-agent Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Terrorism: Leadership Deficits and Militant Group Tactics

Abrahms¹,

Potter²

2015

Int Org

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Certain types of militant groups—those suffering from leadership deficits—are more likely to attack civilians. Their leadership deficits exacerbate the principal-agent problem between leaders and foot soldiers, who have stronger incentives to harm civilians. We establish the validity of this proposition with a tripartite research strategy that balances generalizability and identification. First, we demonstrate in a sample of militant organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa that those lacking centralized leadership are prone to targeting civilians. Second, we show that when the leaderships of militant groups are degraded from drone strikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal regions, the selectivity of organizational violence plummets. Third, we elucidate the mechanism with a detailed case study of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian group that turned to terrorism during the Second Intifada because pressure on leadership allowed low-level members to act on their preexisting incentives to attack civilians. These findings indicate that a lack of principal control is an important, underappreciated cause of militant group violence against civilians.

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Leaderless Resistance and Ideological Inclusion: The Case of the Earth Liberation Front

Cited by 50 publications

References 4 publications

Measuring media oriented terrorism

Measuring media oriented terrorism

The Spatial Properties of Radical Environmental Organizations in the UK: Do or Die!

Explaining Terrorism: Leadership Deficits and Militant Group Tactics

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