THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AND OTHER FACTORS IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEATH OF DOMESTIC FAR-RIGHT EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS By Michael Suttmoeller A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Criminal Justice - Doctor of Philosophy 2014 ABSTRACT THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AND OTHER FACTORS IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEATH OF DOMESTIC FAR-RIGHT EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS By Michael Suttmoeller The domestic far-right movement has existed in the United States for many years. During that time, groups have appeared, disappeared and some have even reappeared. Even though thousands of groups have existed throughout history, very little is known about the organizational aspects of these groups, their leaders, and what causes these groups to disband. In order to advance the knowledge of these groups, their leaders and the causes of group death, this dissertation comprehensively examines a sample of groups that existed from 1990-2008. An interdisciplinary approach was utilized to identify external and internal correlates of organizational death, in order to empirically test which of these correlates influences whether a group dies. Further, organizational and individual leadership characteristics were examined to also determine what role leadership has in a group’s demise. This study was unique in that it studied actual organizational death, rather than cessation of violence, and included both violent and non-violent groups. Results from this dissertation, provided empirical support for some previously only anecdotal explanations for organizational death, while also not providing empirical support for others. This dissertation contributes to the scholarly literature on domestic extremist groups, domestic terrorism, and leadership. This dissertation also provides information for law enforcement and policy makers that may be applied to better help them understand these groups, how they function, and how to better address issues they pose. Copyright by MICHAEL SUTTMOELLER 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). The funding and resources provided by the START Pre-doctoral Fellowship were an invaluable contribution to the completion of this dissertation. Several individuals also helped to make the completion of this dissertation possible. I would like to thank Dr. Steven Chermak for his tireless efforts in helping me to develop this topic and research approach for this study. Dr. Chermak and Dr. Joshua Freilich were also kind enough to share their data on domestic far-right extremist groups from their START-funded research project. A large percentage of the groups included in this study are a result of their database. I also would like to thank Dr. Kevin Ford and Dr. Gina Ligon for their helpful comments in developing the individual leadership coding scheme. I also would like to thank researcher Micah-Sage Bolden who substantially contributed to the data collection and coding. Thank you also to Mike Rossler for being a great office mate; always being willing to talk through my dissertation issues; and manning the white board when needed. I also would like to thank my Committee members for their comments and criticisms on my dissertation proposal. These comments were invaluable in moving the dissertation forward. Finally, last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my wife Kristin who’s never ending support allowed this dissertation to become a reality, and my children Riley and Mason for always being there with a hug or a smile when I needed it most. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................x Chapter 1 ..........................................................................................................................................1 Relevance of Proposed Research ............................................................................................2 The Proposed Research Project ............................................................................................11 Research Questions ...............................................................................................................13 Data, Methodology and Analysis ..........................................................................................13 Outline of Subsequent Chapters............................................................................................15 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................................17 Process of Organizational Death ...........................................................................................19 Terrorist Group Organizational Death ..................................................................................20 External causes.............................................................................................................22 Economics ............................................................................................................22 Competition..........................................................................................................25 Technology ..........................................................................................................26 Legal and government restraints ..........................................................................27 Social change .......................................................................................................28 Political vulnerability ...........................................................................................30 Internal causes ..............................................................................................................33 Organizational age and size .................................................................................33 Instability ............................................................................................................35 Infighting among members ..........................................................................35 Factional splitting.........................................................................................36 Loss of operational control ..........................................................................36 Group ideology ....................................................................................................37 Leadership .............................................................................................................................41 Leadership transition ...................................................................................................42 Removal ..............................................................................................................42 Succession ...........................................................................................................43 Created by an ideological leader .................................................................44 Succession to a new generation ..................................................................45 Terrorist group leadership structures ..........................................................................46 Types of leaders ..........................................................................................................48 Charismatic, ideological and pragmatic leadership ...........................................49 Multiple leaders .................................................................................................51 CIP model ..........................................................................................................52 Violent vs. Nonviolent Groups .............................................................................................53 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................55 v Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................................56 Research Design....................................................................................................................56 Sample selection ...........................................................................................................57 Data Collection .....................................................................................................................60 Open source searching ..................................................................................................60 Advantages to open source searching ..................................................................61 Disadvantages to open source data collection .....................................................62 Data collection for this project ......................................................................................64 Coding ...................................................................................................................................65 Correlates of organizational death ................................................................................65 Dependent variables ..............................................................................................65 Independent variables ...........................................................................................66 External variables...........................................................................................66 Internal variables ............................................................................................72 Leadership .............................................................................................................................75 Leadership data collection ...........................................................................................75 Leadership variables ....................................................................................................77 Organizational leadership variables .....................................................................77 Leadership style ..................................................................................................79 Reliability..............................................................................................................................83 Analysis.................................................................................................................................88 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................90 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................................91 External and Internal Factors for Groups that Persisted Longer than Three Years ..............91 External factors .............................................................................................................92 Internal factors ..............................................................................................................94 Combined significant external and internal factors ......................................................96 Violence ........................................................................................................................98 Results of External and Internal Factors for all Groups .....................................................101 External factors ..........................................................................................................101 Internal factors ...........................................................................................................103 Significant factors ......................................................................................................104 Group violence ...........................................................................................................107 Results of External and Internal Factors on Specific Groups .............................................109 Violent groups ............................................................................................................109 Group ideology ..........................................................................................................112 Three year results ..............................................................................................112 All groups..........................................................................................................115 Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................................119 Organizational Leadership Characteristics .........................................................................120 How the Leader was Removed ...........................................................................................121 Leadership Transition .........................................................................................................122 Individual Leadership Characteristics.................................................................................123 Analysis by Group Ideology ...............................................................................................127 vi Violent and Non-Violent Groups ........................................................................................128 All Significant Variables and Organizational Death ..........................................................129 Chapter 6 ......................................................................................................................................131 A Review of the Far Right Group Organizational Death Project and Major Findings.......131 Implications.........................................................................................................................134 Limitations ..........................................................................................................................136 Future Research ..................................................................................................................138 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................142 Appendix I External Correlates ..........................................................................................143 Appendix II Internal Correlates ..........................................................................................144 Appendix III Leadership Correlates....................................................................................145 Appendix IV Open Source Searching Protocol ..................................................................146 Appendix V External Correlates .........................................................................................148 Appendix VI Correlation Matrix for External Correlates ...................................................149 Appendix VII Internal Correlates .......................................................................................150 Appendix VIII Correlation Matrix for Internal Correlates .................................................151 Appendix IX Leadership Correlates ...................................................................................152 Appendix X Correlation Matrix for Individual Leadership Styles .....................................153 Appendix XI Overview of Influence Strategies used between Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic Leaders (Mumford, 2006) ............................................................154 Appendix XII Leadership Rubric........................................................................................155 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................158 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for Dependent Variables ..........................................................66 Table 3.2 Descriptive Statistics for Continuous External Factors ..............................................69 Table 3.3 Descriptive Statistics for Categorical and Dichotomous External Factors .................71 Table 3.4 Descriptive Statistics for Internal Factors ...................................................................74 Table 3.5 Organizational Leadership Descriptive Statistics > 3 Year Groups ...........................79 Table 3.6 Leadership Style Descriptive Statistics.......................................................................82 Table 3.7 Agreement Estimates for Groups that Persisted for Three Years ...............................85 Table 3.8 Agreement Estimates for Groups that did not Persist for Three Years ......................86 Table 3.9 Agreement for Organizational Leadership Variables > Three Year Groups ..............88 Table 3.10 Agreement Estimates for Individual Leadership Styles ...........................................88 Table 4.1 External and Internal Characteristics of Organizational Death ..................................96 Table 4.2 Significant Characteristics and Organizational Death ................................................98 Table 4.3 Violence and Organizational Death >3 Year Groups ...............................................100 Table 4.4 External, Internal and Significant Factors and Dying Prior to Three Years .............106 Table 4.5 Violence and Organizational Death All Groups .......................................................108 Table 4.6 External and Internal Factors for Violent and Non-Violent Groups ........................111 Table 4.7 All Factors by Ideology > 3 Year Groups ................................................................114 Table 4.8 All Factors by Ideology for All Groups ....................................................................117 Table 5.1 Organizational Leadership and Organizational Death (N=230) ...............................121 Table 5.2 Leadership Transition and Organizational Death (N=79) ........................................123 Table 5.3 All Significant Variables and Organizational Death (N=211)..................................130 viii Table 7.1 External Correlates ...................................................................................................143 Table 7.2 Internal Correlates.....................................................................................................144 Table 7.3 Leadership Correlates ...............................................................................................145 Table 7.4 External Correlates ...................................................................................................148 Table 7.5 Correlation Matrix for External Correlates ...............................................................149 Table 7.6 Internal Correlates.....................................................................................................150 Table 7.7 Correlation Matrix for Internal Correlates ................................................................151 Table 7.8 Leadership Correlates ...............................................................................................152 Table 7.9 Correlation Matrix for Individual Leadership Styles ................................................153 Table 7.10 Overview of Influence Strategies ...........................................................................154 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 5.1 Indirect Pathways between Individual Leadership Styles and Group Death ...................126 x Chapter 1 The far-right extremist movement, which began with the Anti-Mason Party in the 1820’s, has existed in the United States for almost 200 years. Numerous groups have appeared and then disappeared (some even reappeared) throughout the history of this movement (Michael, 2003). It is interesting that there is substantial variation in the length of time that a group survives. Some groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) have endured for many years, while many others have existed for less than a year. Even though there have been over 6,000 groups that have been identified as being organized in the past twenty years, and there is significant variation in the length of time they survived, (Chermak, Freilich & Suttmoeller, 2013), there is actually very little research that has identified the factors that influence the longevity of far-right extremist groups in the United States. The lack of interest in identifying the factors involved in group survival and death is surprising because domestic far-right extremist groups have historically been a significant concern in the United States (Etter, 2005), currently are defined as a growing threat as there is evidence that recruitment, membership and group formation has increased since the election of President Obama (Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 2009) and there has been a number of high profile violent incidents involving extremists involved in a group, such as the Sikh temple shooting that killed six by a member of the white power band End Apathy (Beirich & Potok, 2012). This study will begin to address this topic in two ways. First, this study will examine the external and internal factors that contribute to the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups in the United States. Second, this study will examine the influence that group leadership may have on organizational longevity by studying both organizational and individual leadership characteristics. 1 Relevance of Proposed Research This study is important for several reasons. First, the far-right poses a significant threat to society (Chermak, Freilich, & Simone, 2010; Etter, 2005; Freilich, Chermak & Caspi, 2009; Freilich, Chermak & Simone, 2009). Freilich, Chermak, and Simone (2009) and Chermak, Freilich and Simone (2010) surveyed state police agencies to learn their perceptions of the threat posed by extremists within their state. They found that the state police viewed the far-right nearly as large a threat to both national and state security as jihadists. The far-right has shown that the police correctly view them as a threat since between 1990 and 2010, the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) identified 100 formal domestic far-right organizations that were linked to over 335 homicide incidents, which resulted in over 560 individuals killed (Chermak et al., 2013; Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald & Parkin, 2011). Additionally, sixty planned and/or attempted terrorist plots have been attributed to the far-right between 1995 and 2006 (Blejas, Griggs, & Potok, 2005; Chermak et al., 2013). In addition to the large number of homicides linked to the far right, high profile incidents such as the murder of Medger Evers, the murder of radio personality Alan Berg, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building (Etter, 2005), and the recent murders at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin (Beirich & Potok, 2012) exemplify the threat posed by the domestic far-right. Further exemplifying the threat posed by the far-right is their willingness to attack law enforcement. Because of anti-government views that are common among far-right adherents, they may view law enforcement officers as representatives of a corrupt or illegitimate government and defenders of policies that threaten individual liberties (Pitcavage, 2001). When coupled with the belief in conspiracy theories that contend that the government is unlawfully watching far-right activists, they may be extremely unpredictable and violent when interacting 2 with law enforcement (Freilich & Chermak, 2009; Pitcavage, 2001). The recent murders of deputies in LaPlace, Louisiana by sovereign citizens exemplify the threat posed by far-right to law enforcement (Stanglin, 2012). Some of the aforementioned acts of violence were committed by both members of formal groups and unaffiliated far-right adherents. The culture of the larger far-right movement may be responsible for these violent acts committed by both formal group members and nongroup members (Simi & Futrell, 2010). Social movement organizations, such as far-right groups, may both explicitly and implicitly promote violent and deviant behavior. However, unlike other types of organizations, the influence of social movement organizations may extend beyond the organization’s membership, which may influence unaffiliated, but like minded others to commit acts of deviance or violence (Freilich, Pichardo Almanzar & Rivera, 1999). Because of the potential reach of far-right organizations, they are especially dangerous and by learning more about factors that affect group longevity of the domestic far-right, the threat posed by these groups may be mediated. Second, in addition to far-right individuals, far-right groups also pose a threat. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) (2012), approximately 1,000 far-right groups currently exist in the United States. Every state in the union except for Hawaii is home to at least one such group. The number of groups has been increasing since 2000 (69% increase) and especially since the election of President Obama. In fact, the number of Patriot groups has increased by 755% between 2008 and 2011 (SPLC, 2012). While not all groups are violent, as more groups appear, the odds of violence occurring also increase. While violent acts are the most publicized acts that pose a threat, far-right groups participate in a wide variety of activities that also could pose a threat. 3 Other than violent acts, domestic far-right groups participate in a variety of activities including, rallies, marches, meetings, leafleting, the publishing of ideological literature, other criminal acts (SPLC, 2012), conferences and political campaigns (Chermak et al., 2013). All of these activities are conducted in order to recruit new members and to further the group’s influence within the movement and the larger community. While groups may use the aforementioned tactics to recruit new members, and some of the activities are protected by the First Amendment, it is the potential of whom they are recruiting and the process of radicalizing a person towards violence that pose a threat. Some groups are known to recruit in prisons and also to recruit military members. Each of these two groups possesses special skills that may be advantageous to far-right organizations (Chermak et al., 2013). Prisoners may bring their particular criminal skills as well as their connections to other far-right activists outside of prison (Holthouse, 2012). For example, the Aryan Brotherhood, which began as a racist prison gang has become a large criminal enterprise both within and outside of prison. To advance their enterprise, they recruit anyone they feel has potential to help their cause. A former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, John Greschner said the following regarding their recruitment: “You want the maniacs, those berserkers, man, that, in their minds, they’re going to Valhalla. If they fall on the battlefield, they’re going to paradise” (Holthouse, 2012 p. 24). In addition to individuals recruited into the Brotherhood, connections of new recruits also often become part of the Brotherhood, which allows them to expand their enterprise that includes murder-for hire, drug and weapons trafficking, gambling, counterfeiting and identity theft among other criminal activity (Holthouse, 2012). The recruitment of military members into far-right groups is also alarming. Military members have special training in a variety of skills that would be beneficial to a group bent on 4 committing violence. Military members are extensively trained in the use of weapons, explosives and combat strategies (Chermak, et al., 2013; Smith, Damphousse, Chermak, & Freilich, 2011). For example, the American Front recruited a Missouri National Guard member in the hopes that he could provide weapons, military training and medical training to their members. In return for becoming a full member in the group, the Guard member provided training in the use of an AK47 and other combat type training (Patrick, 2012). Even though the other activities, such as rallies and marches in which domestic far-right groups participate may cause some to feel threatened, these activities are constitutionally protected. While these activities are protected speech and will continue to occur, they may pose a threat. Green and Rich (1998) found that the frequency of cross burning incidents increased dramatically in areas where rallies were recently held. More frightening was that the perpetrators were not known group members. It appears as though the rally had a mobilizing effect on unaffiliated members of the larger movement. This speaks to the larger threat identified by Freilich et al., (1999). Not only is the presence of a large number of groups and their within group activities, such as recruiting military members, a threat, but they also may have a mobilizing effect on those not affiliated with groups, which may pose a larger, unknown threat. Third, this study is important because it will be the first comprehensive study of the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Prior to this study, the correlates of the organizational death of domestic far-right groups have been largely ignored by scholars. There has been some important research on this topic within the larger extremism and terrorism literature, but it has not focused on the far right. Within this literature, ideologically different terrorist organizations have been studied including far-left (Ross & Gurr, 1989) and jihadi groups such as Al-Qaeda (Cronin, 2006, 2009), but the focus has generally been on transnational 5 terrorist groups. Research examining the causes of organizational decline and death, leadership, and organizational characteristics of domestic far-right organizations is rare. One of the only studies to begin to address the issue of organizational decline for the far right is Freilich et al. (2009). This study provides an important foundation for the current study, but the methodology consisted only of four detailed case studies. The present project will significantly expand on this foundation through quantitative examination of organizational characteristics leading to decline and death. While this study is innovative simply because it is the first of its kind to study the correlates of organizational death for domestic far-right extremist groups, some other aspects are also innovative. First, this study examines a large number of groups existing for varying lengths of time. A couple of large-scale terrorism studies exist (Jones & Libicki, 2008, Blomberg et al. 2010), but many of the studies that have examined organizational death correlates have only consisted of case studies and a limited number of groups. None of the large scale studies have focused on domestic right-wing groups. This study will examine characteristics of over 400 domestic far-right groups that persisted for significantly different periods of time. Since the majority of groups persist for less than one year (Rapoport, 1992, Chermak et al., 2013), it is important to compare factors impacting groups that last for short and long periods of time. By studying such a large number of groups, a more thorough understanding of the reasons for the organizational death of far-right groups may be attained. Second, this study will include both violent and non-violent groups. Prior to this study, most researchers have focused on violent groups. While it is understandable why violent groups receive the most scholarly attention, non-violent groups also should be studied for several reasons. First, non-violent groups comprise a larger percentage of the far-right movement in the 6 United States. In fact, research by Chermak, et al. (2013) indicate that only about 20 percent of a sample of hate groups turned to violence. By not studying non-violent groups, scholars are neglecting a significant portion of the larger movement. Any policy implications from studies of violent groups may be applicable to violent groups, but may not apply to far-right groups generally. Secondly, Simi (2009) discovered that far-right terrorists were normally involved in the larger domestic far-right movement prior to becoming violent. Because not all individuals involved in the larger non-violent portion of the movement become violent, it is important to study non-violent groups in order to determine their role in the larger movement. Finally, a comprehensive understanding of the reasons for the organizational death of far-right groups is not possible without including non-violent groups. The inclusion of non-violent groups may provide insights into whether the causes of organizational death are different and whether the type and role of leadership differs for these groups. Therefore, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the reasons for the organizational death of far-right groups, non-violent groups are included in this study. Fourth, considerable organizational scholarship exists examining leadership and organizational failure, but this has not been applied to terrorism or extremism. Leadership and managerial competence are vitally important to the success or failure of an organization (Altman, 1983; Argenti, 1976; Fredenberger, Lipp & Watson, 1997; Kharbanda & Stallworthy, 1985; Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Schuchman & White, 1995). Leadership has been extensively studied within the organizational literature and even though the literature is clear that leadership is important to a group’s longevity, leadership has not garnered much interest from terrorism and extremism researchers, as prior extremist and terrorist leadership studies have consisted mainly of case studies that simply described the leadership structures or specific 7 individual leaders of a particular group. No studies in the extremism or terrorism literature have examined the role that leadership may play in organizational death. This is surprising since the main goal and focus of any leader should be the perpetuation of their group (Crenshaw, 1988). Because of a leader’s interest in the perpetuation of their group, they may play an important role in a variety of ways regarding the organizational death of a group. This study will thoroughly examine the role of leadership in the organizational death of domestic extremist groups. The general topic of organizational death has also been studied extensively by organizational, education and management scholars. A wide variety of businesses and organizations have been studied since the time of Argenti (1976) and numerous correlates of organizational death have been identified and empirically examined. It is surprising that scholars have not drawn from this extensive literature to study terrorist and extremist organizations. Because terrorism is an interdisciplinary topic (Silke, 2009), an interdisciplinary approach will no doubt increase the validity and usefulness of any extremist group study of organizational death. This research will be integrated into this proposed study in order to ensure that these topics are examined as thoroughly as possible and to ensure that the proposed project makes as large a contribution to the understanding of these groups as is possible. Fifth, interest in terrorism has been growing since 9-11. The interest and funding for terrorism research has increased since the attacks on September 11, 2001. This has resulted in an improvement in the overall quality of terrorism research and an increase in the number of research articles and books published (Silke, 2009). Despite these increases, most of the literature is not empirical. This increased focus on terrorism research has begun to address the problematic lack of empirical studies prior to 9/11, as the overall percentage of empirical terrorism studies has increased from 19% prior to 9-11 to 25% between 2005 and 2007 (Silke, 8 2009). The study of organizational death for terrorist and extremist groups is also unempirical. Most of the studies that have examined the causes of organizational death for terrorist groups have not been empirical and have simply listed anecdotal reasons that specific groups perished. This increase in the number of overall empirical studies is encouraging, but in order to not only advance the academic study of terrorism and extremism generally and organizational failure for extremist groups specifically, but also to increase its utility for policy makers, more empirical work is needed. This study contributes to the expansion of the empirical knowledge base of the death of extremist groups through the use of logistic regression to test correlates of a previously untested topic: the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Sixth, this study is quite unique because it takes advantage of a unique organizational database-the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). Historically, a lack of data has hindered the study of terrorism and terrorist groups. However, scholars have begun to address this issue through the use of several databases such as the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE) database and the ECDB (Chermak et al., 2013). The ECDB is unique and valuable for several reasons. The first is the large number of groups included in the database that all occur within the same national context. Having a database that contains only groups from within the same national context allows the researcher to control for influences that are common to all groups, rather than trying to control for influences on groups that are located around the world. Second, the ECDB includes both violent and non-violent groups. Other databases focus on violent, terrorist organizations only. Including both violent and non-violent groups allows for a much fuller understanding of the overall far-right movement in America. Third, the ECDB is unique and valuable because of the depth of information contained in the database for each group. Over 200 variables are coded for 9 each group. A wide range of variables are captured for each group including, historical information, violent and non-violent group behaviors, group ideology, and networking. By capturing such a wide range of variables, a fuller understanding of each group is possible, that is not possible with other databases. Moreover, the present study will enhance these data in several ways. First, correlates of organizational death will be added. Second, more in-depth leadership characteristics will be coded into the database. Currently the ECDB contains some variables that capture some of the structural leadership data required for this project, but does not contain much information concerning characteristics of individual leaders. Finally, the ECDB currently only contains group data for organizations that persisted for three years or longer. This project will add a substantial number of groups that did not exist for three years or longer. Finally, this study is important because of its policy implications. Practitioners, policy makers and especially law enforcement should benefit from this proposed research. This research not only will expand the overall knowledge base about extremist groups, the correlates that may contribute to the organizational death of extremist groups and how leadership influences the longevity of extremist organizations, but it also may provide specific evidence based information to policy makers concerning these topics. This is important because it is difficult to develop policy initiatives from anecdotal evidence (Chermak et al., 2013), and policy suggestions that are developed based on anecdotal evidence are not highly regarded by policy making practitioners (Chermak et al, 2013; Hamm, 2007; Merari, 1991). This study will address this issue through the use of empirical techniques to develop evidence based policy prevention strategies that can be utilized by those professionals who work to combat these groups. The inclusion of non-violent groups in this study will also assist law enforcement agencies in learning more about these groups and how they are different from violent groups. 10 The Proposed Research Project The proposed research project makes an empirical and conceptual contribution to the extant literature. The first empirical contribution is that this is a group-level empirical study. This is an important contribution because studies examining group-level variables are not common in terrorism research (Asal & Rethemeyer, 2008; Chermak et al., 2013). The second empirical contribution is made through the use of unique data and the type of analysis. This project utilizes and enhances the ECDB. Through the additions to this database, not only does it create data for use in this project, but also data that could be utilized in future projects. Finally, the use of logistic regression is an important empirical contribution. This study also makes a conceptual contribution through its focus on leadership and in depth application of the leadership literature. Most of the prior studies of extremist/terrorist organizational death have neglected leadership as a possible factor. This is a glaring omission since the main goal of a leader should be the perpetuation of the group (Crenshaw, 1988) and that leadership is vitally important to the success of social movements (Nepstad & Bob, 2006). By ignoring the influence of leadership, scholars are assuming that organizations are simply victims of their circumstances and environments and cannot adapt or do anything to influence their situation. If this were true, then what is the point of having organizational leadership? The organizational literature is clear that leadership may play an important role in the longevity of an organization. In addition to setting goals, mobilizing followers, enacting strategies and building coalitions (Nepstad & Bob, 2006), leadership must also be engaged with their external environments to identify potential threats. How leadership reacts to these threats will be important to whether the group adapts and persists or does not adapt and dies (Meyer, 1988). Because of this important role that leadership may play in organizational failure, this study 11 examines both the organizational structure of leadership as well as the individual characteristics of leaders to determine to what extent these structures and characteristics may influence organizational failure. The individual characteristics of leaders were identified through the application of Mumford’s (2006) charismatic, ideological, pragmatic (CIP) model to individual group leaders. This extremely important study expanded leadership theory by identifying three types of outstanding leaders: charismatic, ideological and pragmatic. Mumford (2006) examined these three types of leaders in order to determine if three distinct pathways to outstanding leadership existed. More specifically, he examined how these three types of leaders differed regarding problem solving, leader and follower relationships, communication strategies, political tactics and development (p. 269). Mumford found significant differences in those characteristics, which meant that three distinct leadership types did exist and each could lead to outstanding leadership, rather than the traditional charismatic and transformational leadership pathway. Similar to traditional leadership studies, charismatic leadership has garnered the most attention from terrorism and extremism researchers. However, charismatic leadership may not be an effective leadership type for all situations (Mumford, 2006). Most terrorism studies have examined leadership as a dichotomous variable—charismatic or not, and much of this research ignores the difficulties in operationalizing “charismatic.” This proposed study applied and expanded Mumford’s CIP model to identify different leadership types within domestic far-right extremist groups. Once identified, these leadership types were examined to determine their influence on organizational death. This analysis not only contributed to leadership theory in general, but also to the leadership theory regarding leadership’s role in organizational death. 12 Research Questions This study will address the following research questions. These questions are asked in order to capture the full range of correlates that may influence the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. In addition to general questions regarding correlates of organizational death, specific questions are asked to capture how group leadership influences group longevity. 1. What external and internal factors influence the death of domestic far-right extremist groups that persisted for longer than three years? a. Does group participation in violence influence organizational death? 2. What external and internal factors influence the death of domestic far-right organizations prior to reaching three years of age? a. Does group participation in violence influence whether or not a group reaches three years of age? 3. What leadership characteristics influence domestic far-right group longevity? a. Does the organizational structure of leadership influence group longevity? b. Does the leadership style of domestic far-right group leaders influence group longevity? Data, Methodology, and Analysis This study systematically addressed the above research questions through the identification, coding and analysis of possible correlates of organizational death for the existing sample of domestic far-right groups in the ECDB, as well as for additional groups that were 13 added. In addition to the correlates of organizational death, individual leadership characteristics were systematically identified, coded and analyzed for the existing sample of groups. The original groups were identified as part of a larger Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) funded project that also collected data on domestic extremist violent incidents. The original groups were identified by co-principle investigators Dr. Steven Chermak (Michigan State University) and Dr. Joshua Freilich (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual Intelligence Report and Klan Watch publications to identify all groups that were known to exist in the United States between 1990 and 2008. Over 50% of the identified groups were randomly selected for inclusion in the project (Chermak et al., 2013). Once selected for inclusion, each group was systematically searched utilizing 26 different search engines, including Google, News Library, Infotrac, Lexis-Nexis and All the Web to uncover all open source public materials on each group (Chermak et al., 2013). This search protocol was used to collect information on the remaining groups and also the individual leadership characteristics for the current project. Once all possible information was collected, this information was used to determine whether or not each group met the ECDB definitions of the far-right and also their group definition. If the group met those criteria, it was coded and entered into the database. If it did not meet the ECDB definition of far-right and group, that extremist group was no longer included in the study. In addition to open source information concerning correlates of organizational death and leadership, environmental factors that may contribute to an organization’s longevity were identified and captured. This project consisted of several analyses. The first analysis examined the relationship between external and internal factors and organizational death for groups that persisted for 14 longer than three years. These results are presented in Chapter 4. The second analysis examined the relationship between external and internal factors and group longevity for groups that persisted for three years or longer and those that died prior to existing for three years. These results are presented in Chapter 4. The final analysis examined the influence of organizational and individual leadership on organizational death. These results are presented in Chapter 5. These analyses have not been previously conducted for domestic far-right groups in America and represent a major contribution to the overall understanding of organizational death for the domestic far-right. Overall, this project makes a major contribution to the overall terrorism and extremism literature. Terrorism research has suffered from a lack of data from which to conduct empirical analyses. This project addressed this fundamental problem through the enhancement and utilization of unique datasets and by performing statistical analysis on previously untested topics. Further, the focus on leadership and leadership types is also innovative and represents an important contribution for not only terrorism and extremism, but also the academic study of leadership. Outline of Subsequent Chapters The remainder of this dissertation will proceed as follows: Chapter 2 consists of a comprehensive and thorough literature review of the previously mentioned topics. Chapter 3 will follow, which will discuss the methods used for data collection, variable conceptualization and analysis. Chapter 4 presents the findings of the analysis that examined the influence of external and internal factors on group death. Chapter 5 presents the findings of the analysis that examined 15 the relationship between organizational and individual leadership characteristics and organizational death. Chapter 6 discusses implications, limitations and future research directions. 16 Chapter 2 The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of relevant literature while also identifying weaknesses or gaps that currently exist pertaining to the topic of organizational death and leadership’s role in organizational death. This chapter will be presented in three sections. First, background information on organizations and organizational death will be presented as well as a review of studies outlining the process of organizational death. Understanding the process through which organizations die is important in order to put possible correlates of death in the proper context. Second, studies that examine the correlates of organizational death will be discussed. Both general characteristics identified from organizational studies and also terrorism and extremism specific studies will be reviewed. A variety of organizations have been examined within the organizational literature and several types of terrorist groups have also been examined. Even though many are case studies, they provide important background information for the current study. Third, the extant literature on leadership and its role in organizational death will be discussed. The organizational literature is clear that leadership is important to organizational survival (Altman, 1983; Argenti, 1976; Fredenberger, Lipp & Watson, 1997; Kharbanda & Stallworthy, 1985; Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Schuchman & White, 1995), but leadership has not garnered much interest from extremism and terrorism scholars. The existing literature concerning leadership structures, individual types and role in organizational death will be reviewed to provide a base for the current study. Within the broad, interdisciplinary literature on organizational failure, a variety of terms have been used to describe organizational failure: organizational mortality, organizational death, organizational exit, bankruptcy, decline, retrenchment, downsizing and failure (Mellahi & Wilkinson, 2004). Because retrenchment and downsizing are processes undertaken by both 17 failing and successful organizations, literature pertaining to these will not be included in the following discussion. Following Mellahi and Wilkinson (2004), failure, mortality, death and exit may all be used to describe organizational death and may be used interchangeably because even though not all failures result in the organization ceasing to exist, the causes of failure could result in an organization ceasing to exist. For example, simply because a firm goes bankrupt does not mean that the business will disappear. It might. Businesses also may reorganize and emerge from the bankruptcy as a viable organization (Delany, 1999). Similar to biological organisms, organizations are born, mature and die (Long, 1990). However, unlike biological organisms, organizations do not necessarily have to die, but most organizations fail quickly and without having achieved their goals (Klein, 2000). Approximately 50 percent of businesses in the United States fail within five years and almost all businesses fail within ten years (Klein, 2000). Similarly, a large percentage of far-right extremist groups (approximately 90%), fail within the first year of existence (Blomberg, Engel, & Sawyer, 2010; Chermak et al., 2013; Rapoport, 1992). Of those that survive more than one year, half of them are thought to have failed within ten years (Hoffman, 1998). Chermak et al. (2013) found an even smaller percentage (~10%) survived longer than three years. While organizational scholars study organizational death in order to learn how to increase organizational survival, the focus of this paper is to identify reasons and conditions that cause domestic far-right extremist groups to fail in order to inform not only the academic study of these groups, but also policy decision making for practitioners that work to combat these groups. 18 Process of Organizational Death The process of organizational death has received little attention from terrorism and extremism researchers (see Phillips, 2011 for an example). However, by applying what has been learned in the organizational literature, this gap in the knowledge base could be addressed and provide an overall picture of the process through which domestic far-right extremist groups die, rather than simply list reasons, which is more common within the terrorism and extremism literature. Also, by identifying the processes through which terrorist or extremist organizations die, comparative analyses of factors would also be possible. Organizations may fail in two main ways. The first is that organizations decline and die through a series of steps (or missteps) or stages over a period of time (Sutton, 1987; Weitzel & Jonsson, 1989). The model proposed by Sutton (1987) identified several steps that an organization will move through during their death. During this time, an organization will move from a permanent, to a temporary, to a defunct organization (Hamilton, 2006; Sutton, 1987). During each stage, organization members interpret the organizations impending death by how it is framed by administrators within the organization. Further, organizational members will participate in the dismantling of the organization during the time preceding its death (Hamilton, 2006; Sutton, 1987). Hambrick and D’Aveni (1988) referred to this time period as a downward spiral. In their study, firms heading to failure showed signs of trouble several years prior to actually failing. As time progressed and their environment and other contingencies changed, they continued the downward spiral and eventually failed. The second way that an organization may die is through a sudden and unexpected death (Hamilton, 2006). This type of death does not move through a prescribed number of stages over 19 a period of time. Hamilton (2006) defined the sudden death of an organization as the “rapid and substantial loss of customers, clients, and market value that is unanticipated based on previous organizational trends” (p. 330). While sudden death may be the result of an organizational crisis or organizational decline, organizational death differs from crisis or decline because the organization ceases to exist in its prior form, loses its identity and can no longer govern itself (Hamilton, 2006). Terrorist Group Organizational Death The failure and death of terrorist and extremist organizations has begun to garner interest from scholars, but large gaps exist within the extant literature concerning this topic. First, very few of the studies deal specifically with organizational death. Some studies identified reasons that could lead to death, but do not specifically study organizational death. Second, the majority of the literature is not empirical. Third, the domestic far-right has been largely ignored by scholars. Most of the studies on this topic have examined transnational terrorist groups. The first challenge presented by the extant literature on this topic is that few of the studies examine actual organizational death. In many cases, groups are judged to “end” when they discontinue the use of terrorism as a tactic (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008). Sometimes this is the result of a group dying, but it also could be the result of the group deciding to become a non-violent and legitimate political organization or by becoming strictly a criminal organization, rather than a terrorist organization (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008). Therefore a variety of reasons identified in the literature are not applicable to the current study since the focus here is exclusively on organizational death, and the sample of organizations includes non-violent groups as part of the focus on organizational death. 20 Second, there is a lack of empirical research on this topic. Similar to other terrorism research, the majority of studies concerning this topic for terrorist and extremist organizations are not empirical (Silke, 2001, 2009). While anecdotal and case studies are useful, they are not very well received by policy makers (Chermak et al, 2013; Hamm, 2007; Merari, 1991). Fortunately, empirical studies have been increasing recently (Blomberg et al., 2010; Crenshaw et al., 2011; Jones & Libicki, 2008; Miller, 2012). This study will contribute to this increasing number of empirical studies. Third, the domestic far-right has been largely ignored by scholars. The majority of studies pertaining to terrorist or extremist group longevity focus on transnational terrorist groups. While these studies are important and can provide background information for the current study, the environment within which the domestic far-right is operating is much different than many transnational terrorist groups. Few studies exist that have examined these types of correlates for the domestic far-right. Similarly, because a group becoming non-violent is considered the “end” of a group in much of the literature, how non-violent groups die has also been ignored by scholars. Fourth, most of the work on organizational death has been case studies, and some factors have been identified as being important. However, quantitative analysis of a large number of external and internal factors has not yet occurred, and no studies have detailed the impact of leadership on organizational death. Thus, the following discussion consists of a variety of possible correlates of organizational death that have previously been identified in the terrorism or extremism literature. 21 A variety of potential reasons for the decline and demise of an organization have been identified, and scholars generally agree that external and internal factors influence the longevity of organizations (McCauley, 2008; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; USIP, 1999). Multiple factors often play a role in the death of an organization and rarely does only one factor cause the failure of an organization (Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Schendel, Patton & Riggs, 1976; Shuchman & White, 1995; Slatter, 1984; Zimmerman, 1991). Both organizational research in general and terrorism/extremism research specifically have identified a large number of factors that should be considered for predicting organizational death. McCauley (2008) in his synthesis of the terrorist group decline literature recognized that some correlates of organizational decline did not necessarily cause a group to disintegrate. He then developed a list of correlates that could be associated with the death of an organization. This list will provide the foundation for the remainder of this discussion, with some additions when necessary to account for studies conducted since the time of his synthesis as well as the general organizational literature. External causes. External causes are environmental contingencies that may influence an organization’s longevity. While some scholars have developed their own lists of possible causes of organizational failure, Murphy and Meyers (2008) developed a six cause typology based on a review of the organizational decline and demise literature to help explain the external environment’s influence on organizational longevity. The six main causes are: economic slowdown, competition, technology, legal and government constraints, social change, and political vulnerability (p. 75). Economics. 22 White supremacist groups have historically utilized economic issues to recruit and mobilize supporters (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011; Van Dyke & Soule, 2002). No one has examined economic issues relative to the organizational death of domestic extremist groups, but they have been identified in the larger organizational literature as being important and have begun to be tested for transnational terrorist groups. The organizational literature has focused primarily on the negative impact that an economic downturn in the business cycle can have on an organization’s viability (Argenti, 1976; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Pearce & Michael, 2006). An economic downturn or recession is an important environmental factor in an organization’s survival because during a recession, customer spending decreases and competition increases (Pearce & Michael, 2006). An economic downturn may have a negative impact on domestic farright groups, but because of the nature of these groups; it may also have a positive impact on these groups. An economic slowdown could potentially impact fundraising and the collection of membership dues for terrorist or extremist groups because group members would have less disposable income. On the other hand, a poor economic situation may have the opposite effect and perpetuate extremist groups or push new members to existing extremist groups (Dobratz & Shanks-Meile, 1997; McVeigh, 2004). Economic issues for terrorist groups have been measured in a couple of different ways. Both Blomberg et al., (2010) and Crenshaw et al., (2011) in their studies of transnational terrorist group longevity used national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as their main economic measure and found that a country’s GDP influenced the duration of terrorist groups. Jones and Libicki (2008) also examined economics relative to terrorist group longevity, but they used the World Bank’s Gross National income per capita and did not find an association. These measures have little relevance to the current study because all the groups included here operate within the same 23 national context, but it is possible that other economic indicators may influence the groups in the current study. Other scholars have examined economics based on whether an organization is situated in a rural, suburban, or urban environment. Smith (1994) suggested that most extremist groups are located in rural environments, but Ross (1993) reported that urban environments were more conducive to terrorist activities and Jefferson and Pryor (1999) found that more domestic extremist groups were present in urban environments. Urban, suburban and rural environments are different economically (Abel, Gabe, and Stolarick, 2012). Abel et al., (2012) examined human capital and its influence on the distribution of skills and earnings of workers across an urban-rural continuum. Human capital is the knowledge and skills used by workers to produce goods and services (Abel et al., 2012). They found that urban areas had larger populations of occupations that required complex thinking, idea generation and problem solving such as engineers and business executives (white collar), while rural areas were more often populated by those in occupations such as construction, production and assembly and maintenance (blue collar). The earnings potential for the executive and engineer class of occupations was also much greater in the urban areas. Those that worked in other environments further down the continuum made less money than their counterparts in the urban areas (Abel et.al, 2012). This is particularly relevant since Florida (2012) found that hate groups are concentrated in areas with a larger blue-collar workforce and the majority of the leaders of domestic right-wing extremist groups are employed in middle class and lower middle class occupations (Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998; Smith, 1994). An environment that consists mainly of these types of jobs may influence not only the prevalence of right wing extremist groups, but also possibly their longevity. 24 A second economic factor that could influence group longevity is the percentage of people living in poverty. Gilliard-Matthews (2011) found that the percentage of people living in poverty affected the ability of some white supremacist groups to mobilize and organize. Similarly, Florida (2012) found that hate groups were concentrated in areas with higher poverty rates. If higher poverty rates concentrate numbers of hate groups because they are more able to mobilize and organize in these areas, then it is conceivable that it may also have the opposite effect, in that areas with lower numbers of people living in poverty could negatively influence a group’s ability to organize and mobilize. Competition. Another potentially important external factor is competition. Competition has been operationalized by organizational and terrorism scholars in a couple of different ways. Traditional organizations compete with each other in a variety of ways such as price and product competition (Murphy & Meyers, 2008). According to Oots (1989), terrorist organizations commonly compete against each other for resources and recruits. If one organization is able to propose a better “package” (product) than another organization, they may gain more recruits and possibly draw defectors from other organizations. This competition can lead an organization who is not able to compete to decline or die because it cannot maintain its membership levels while more competitive organizations thrive. Secondarily, competition may cause an increase in violence by organizations. In an effort to gain supporters, groups may participate in more violence. However, this increase in violence may also have the opposite effect and erode public confidence and support for the organization, which can also lead to its decline and demise (Oots, 1989). 25 Competition can also be operationalized as a measure of density. Organizational density increases the competition between organizations for resources and niches, which can result in new organizations having high mortality rates (Freeman, Carroll & Hannan, 1983) as well as the elimination of some organizations in high density environments (Hannan & Freeman, 1988). Although competition has not been studied frequently in terms of its impact of terrorist organizations, the important work by Crenshaw et al., (2011) did include a measure of organizational density competition. Their measure was the number of groups operating within a given context. They found that a higher organizational density decreased a group’s survival chances to a certain point and then increased their chances. They explained that it may be due to cooperation between groups (Crenshaw et al., 2011). Technology. A failure to utilize new or current technology is also a possible reason for an organization’s decline or death (Argenti, 1976; Hill & Rothaermel, 2003; Murphy & Meyers, 2008). When faced with a new and innovative technological advancement, existing or established firms may have difficulty adopting the new technology and decline. While these firms are declining, new or younger organizations may be more able and willing to adopt the new technological advancement and outcompete the more established firms (Hill & Rothaermel, 2003). While this is definitely is not always the case, as some established firms may be more willing or able than others to adopt new technological advancements, prior research has shown that older, more established organizations may have difficulties in this area (Hill & Rothaermel, 2003). This inability to adopt and utilize new technology may have relevance to the current study. An important technological advancement that occurred during the study period has been the use of computers and the Internet. 26 The first documented use of a computerized bulletin board by an extremist group was in 1985 by the Aryan Nations when they created the “Aryan Nation Liberty Net” (Lowe, 1985), while the first known use of the world wide web by far-right extremists was the creation of the Stormfront website by Don Black in 1995 (Crilley, 2001; Schafer, 2002). The use of the Internet provides several advantages to terrorist groups. They may use the Internet for fundraising, networking, recruitment, to engage in publicity, propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns, and to gather and share information (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). By utilizing the Internet, groups can reach donors and recruits that they may have otherwise not been able to access. Additionally, through information gathering and sharing, groups may learn how to conduct certain types of violent activities. Because of the increased chance to recruit new members and to raise money to support their activities by using the Internet, groups that do not utilize the Internet may be at a disadvantage (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). It is possible that newer groups who have members more familiar with computers and the Internet may be more willing to utilize this technology than are older groups who have not historically utilized this type of technology. Legal and government restraints. Murphy and Meyers (2008) defined legal and government restraints as government intervention and regulation of traditional businesses. All levels of government, whether local, state or national, influence organizations and control the types of relationships and transactions in which organizations may participate (Scott, 1992). Governments constrain businesses as well as extremist organizations. While the type of influence discussed by Murphy and Meyers and Scott does not directly apply to extremist groups, in the context of a terrorist or extremist organization, legal and government restraints could take the form of government repression in 27 the form of military or police intervention, which may lead to a terrorist group’s death (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Gupta, 2008; Harmon, 2008; Jones & Libicki, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; TTSRL, 2008; USIP, 1999). In their large-scale study, Jones & Libicki (2008) found that 47% of the groups ended due to military or police involvement. Their concern about police involvement is particularly relevant to this study because of the focus on domestic groups. They argue that the police department’s mission is “to eliminate the terrorist organization—the command structure, terrorists, logistical support, and financial and political support—from the midst of the population” (p. 27). Police can achieve this mission through information sharing, developing antiterrorism legislation and by penetrating and disrupting terrorist organizations (Jones & Libicki, 2008). Since most groups are small and terrorism tends to be local, policing may be the more effective means of government intervention, especially within the United States. Social change. Social change may also influence organizational failure (Murphy & Meyers, 2008). Businesses that do not realize shifts in the social environment may be prone to failure. These could be changes in lifestyle, or changes in the racial or ethnic composition of the larger society (Argenti, 1976; Murphy & Meyers, 2008). These changes can decrease the demand for a given product or service, and if the organization does not recognize or respond to these changes in demand, they may decline or die (Slatter, 1984). For example, American car buyer’s preferences changed from larger vehicles to more performance oriented ones. Because Ford and Chrysler failed to detect this change, both companies entered a period of decline (Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Reich & Donohue, 1985; Yates, 1983). Changes in the social environment may also cause a change in the demand for an extremist groups “goods” or “services”. This change in demand could have relevance to the domestic far-right as their viability may be linked to society’s 28 tolerance of their existence. Also, because of the racial component of the far-right, differences in societal demographics may also influence these groups (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). Two types of social change variables have been examined in previous terrorism research. First, a loss of popular support is a social change factor that may lead to a group’s death (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Crothers, 2003; Horgan, 2009; Hudson, 1999; Long, 1990; McCauley, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; Oots, 1989; Phillips, 2011; TTSRL, 2008; USIP, 1999). Terrorist groups need outside support for a variety of reasons. Two different types of support are important to terrorist groups: active and passive (Cronin, 2006). Active support could take the form of assisting in providing hiding places for group members, providing funding, or through joining the organization. Conversely, passive support is much less overt and may consist of ignoring signs of a group’s operation, refusing to cooperate with authorities, contributing money to groups through front organizations or by simply expressing support for the group (Cronin, 2006). If changes within a groups’ external environment lead to a decrease in support for a group, they may not be able to effectively recruit and may cease to exist. The amount of racial heterogeneity within the state in which a domestic far-right group exists is another social variable that may influence longevity. While no one has tested this with regards to terrorist or extremist group death or failure, measures of cultural diversity have been used in other studies of the far right (see Freilich, 2003; McVeigh, 2004). The chances of a white person encountering minorities who do not adhere to their worldview of white racial supremacy increase in more racially heterogeneous areas. These encounters may lead white people to believe their place in society is threatened by minorities who are socially or economically successful, or can increase their animosity toward minorities if the encounters are unpleasant (McVeigh, 2004). Regardless of the type of experience from these encounters, feelings of being 29 threatened or of animosity can increase a racial group’s ability to recruit and organize in particular areas, which may impact extremist group longevity (McVeigh, 2004). Political vulnerability. Political constraints influence organizations of all types, including businesses, social movement organizations and extremist groups. Political stability is crucial to organizations. When there is a stable political environment, organizations may be able to plan for the future. Conversely, in an unstable environment, organizations are less willing to risk capital and other efforts, due to an uncertain future (Aldrich, 1979). The stability of the political environment is dependent on the decision making of politicians. Political decisions that affect businesses are often made by third parties or politicians that do not have a direct stake in the outcome of the decision (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). These decisions may have a positive or negative influence on a particular organization. Because of the threat of negative decision making, traditional businesses have a history of involvement in politics and may take actions to influence the political environment to favor their position (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). Like traditional businesses, political context may also influence social movement organizations and extremist group’s ability to survive. Unstable political environments surrounding groups or movements may inspire group mobilization (Tilley, 1978). An example of when this occurred was during the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Because of the Democratic Party’s stance on civil rights issues, traditionally democratic portions of the country began to identify with the Republican Party. This political unrest and instability provided a fertile ground that social movement organizations could exploit (Dobratz & Shanks-Meile, 1997). Political instability caused by changes in political alignments can be evidenced by 30 electoral instability. When political alignments shift based on election results, social movements may be encouraged by the changing political environment (Tarrow, 1996). Further, Kriesi (1996) argued that the configuration of the political party system may have an effect on social movement organizations. While he discusses the left side of the political spectrum, rather than the right, he believed that the political party will encourage and attempt to adopt portions of social movement organizations that may benefit them politically, which would lead to increased political support for the organization. The political environment can be assessed through measures of ideology and representation. The ideology of the state government can have an influence on whether or not white supremacist groups are able to mobilize. This measure was first proposed by Berry, Ringquist, Fording and Hanson (1998) and was utilized by Gilliard-Matthews (2011). Government ideology is an ideological measure of the political leaders of each state based on roll-call voting scores, congressional election outcomes, the partisan division of the state legislatures, the governor’s party and other political assumptions (Berry et al., 1998; GilliardMatthews (2011). Political representation may also influence the presence and mobilization of white supremacist groups in the United States (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). She measured political representation two ways: by presidential election results or whether or not a state was considered a “red state” (Republican) or a “blue state” (Democrat) and by the party affiliation of the state’s governor. She found that political representation did influence the presence of some types of groups. 31 Even though the prior discussion centered on the mobilization and presence of social movement organizations and extremist groups, this paper is focused on the failure or demise of these groups. No one to this point has examined these types of political variables relative to the death of domestic far-right organizations. However, Oots (1989) suggested that the same factors that may lead to the formation of a terrorist organization may also lead to its demise. Therefore, examining the political context at the state level may influence whether or not a domestic rightwing organization persists or fails. Finally, political vulnerability may play a role in organizational death or failure. While much of the literature focused on legitimacy (Murphy & Meyers, 2008), Halliday and Carruthers (1999) discussed how a government’s political intervention can influence organizational failure. Because of the political aspects of the domestic far-right (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011), the external political influences may impact their ability to survive. Internal causes. In addition to external causes, internal causes also may play a role in the longevity of organizations. While blaming organizational decline or failure solely on the external environment or a single cause is popular, it is generally not accurate (Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyers, 2008). Even though external factors can cause organizational failure and may contribute to an organization’s demise, internal issues are responsible for organizational failure more often than are external causes (Argenti, 1976; Bibeault, 1982; Boyle & Desai, 1991), possibly responsible for up to 80% of all failures (Bibeault, 1982). Internal causes are thought to be more important than external because regardless of what happens in the external environment, the organization must react to it internally, and how the organization reacts will be at least as 32 important as the original external stimulus (Murphy & Meyers, 2008). Internal causes of organizational death are important to the current study because much of the focus is on the extremist groups and their internal dynamics. Specifically, age, size, internal conflict, group ideology, management and leadership are critical to understanding the death of extremist groups. For a summary of internal and leadership correlates that will be tested see Appendix II and Appendix III. Organizational age and size. The organizational literature has been inconsistent as to whether or not organizational age influences a group’s longevity. In his seminal work, Stinchcombe (1965) argued that younger organizations failed at a much higher rate than did older organizations. He referred to this as a “liability of newness” (p. 148). He argued that new organizations lack stable relationships between members and are still learning and creating their roles and tasks, and therefore are susceptible to failure (Stinchcombe, 1965). Freeman et al. (1983) found support for a liability of newness in their study of organizational mortality of newspaper organizations and labor unions. However, not all scholars agree. Bruderl and Schussler (1990) proposed that rather than a liability of newness, organizations may suffer from a liability of adolescence. They argued that this may be more accurate than the liability of newness because organizations cannot truly be judged after a very short amount of time (Bruderl & Schussler, 1990). Further, organizations commonly contain a stockpile of resources that will support the organization through their initial founding, which would counteract the liability of newness. Organizations also may survive for at least some time because their founders will not readily abandon the organization (Bruderl & Schussler, 1990). Further, Ranger-Moore (1997) offered a different point of view in that 33 organizations may be more prone to failure as they age, and that the susceptibility of young organizations to failure may be more a function of size, rather than age. Ranger-Moore (1997) raised an important question as to whether organizational age or size is more important in determining an organization’s fate. Unfortunately, the answer to this question of whether or not the chances of organizational death decrease with increased size is not straightforward. Studies have shown that the chances of organizational death decrease with increased organizational size, however, age and size have been shown to be highly correlated because most organizations increase in size as they age (Barron, West, & Hannan, 1994; Hannan, 1998; Hannan, Carroll, Dobrev, & Han, 1998). Whether or not organizational size influences a terrorist organization’s mortality has produced mixed results. Some researchers, such as Jones and Libicki (2008), believed that larger groups may be able to outlast smaller groups due to their available resources and the greater difficulty of government factionalization. Conversely, others believed that a larger group size may make it harder for groups to maintain internal cohesion (Horgan, 2009; Oots, 1989). This question is far from resolved. Further complicating the matter is that group size may simply be the result of persisting for an extended period of time and actually is not related to group longevity (Jones & Libicki, 2008). Even though scholars cannot agree on whether or not a large group size influences a group’s longevity, they do agree that a loss of members can lead to the death of a terrorist organization. Terrorist groups may meet their demise through the loss of members due to amnesty (Cronin, 2009a; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008), death, imprisonment or disenchantment (Freilich et al., 2009; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). Freilich et 34 al. (2009) cited as an example the Oklahoma Constitutional Militia (OCM). This group was short-lived, but attracted the attention of the police and was infiltrated by an informant. The entire group (4 members) was arrested and the group ended (also see Chermak 2002). Instability. Instability within the organization is another internal characteristic that may influence a group’s longevity (Hager et al., 1999). They defined instability as a loss of personnel or turnover. Instability could also mean infighting (Argenti, 1976). For purposes of this discussion, the following factors will be subsumed under factional splitting: in-fighting among members (Cronin, 2009a; Oots, 1989), factional splitting (Horgan, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008) and loss of operational control (Cronin, 2009a). In-fighting among members. In-fighting can be the result of competition or disagreements. Infighting due to competition may occur when group members compete against one another for leadership positions (see Oots, 1989). This level of competition for control of the group can be increased if unhappy factions within the group gain favor with outside groups. Once this occurs, these outside forces may begin to influence and manipulate the group’s activities and behavior to the benefit of the outside group. Infighting can also occur due to disagreements. Members may disagree about the group’s operations, style, assets or the speed with which the group is escalating their activities (Cronin, 2009a). This type of infighting can have consequences beyond simple disagreements and loss of members due to defection, as sometimes unhappy members who attempt to leave may be subject to violent retribution. This is especially relevant to clandestine groups because every member 35 that leaves becomes a liability to the remaining group members. If the group resorts to killing those that dissent, other members may become alienated from the group and attempt to leave, report the group to the police, or both (Cronin, 2009a). Ideological disagreements over the use of violence also commonly lead to group in-fighting. These disagreements differ somewhat from those discussed earlier, where members become dissatisfied due to the type of violence being used by the group. This type of in-fighting concerns the general use of violence as a strategy more than the actual type of violence used (Cronin, 2009a). Factional splitting. Factionalism among large terrorist organizations is common (Oots, 1989). As groups increase in size, the ability to maintain internal cohesiveness becomes much more difficult. When the amount of dissent within the organization becomes great enough, factionalization, competition and internal struggles for leadership may occur. When factionalism occurs within the group, the larger group may no longer exist, but rather is broken into smaller groups, which may or may not become functioning terrorist organizations (Oots, 1989). Competition within the group as well as internal leadership struggles may also cause factionalization which may lead to the demise of the organization (Oots, 1989). Loss of operational control. Group leaders may also lose operational control, which can lead to the group’s demise. As law enforcement or counterterrorism agencies increase the pressure on groups, it becomes increasingly difficult to carry out their attacks (Cronin, 2009a). When this happens, leaders may lose control of their operatives and they may begin to strike easier or soft targets without group sanction. Because the need for greater security leads to greater compartmentalization within the 36 group, more mistakes and inefficient strikes are made which may lead to increased public backlash against the group or other unintended consequences (Cronin, 2009a). Further, since some group members are specifically recruited for their particular skill set, once operational control is lessened, these operatives may become unmanageable and can lead different segments of the organization to actively work against each other (Cronin, 2009a). Further, these members may become so violent that they can no longer be controlled by the group and their presence within the group becomes counterproductive and harmful for the group (Cronin, 2009a). Group ideology. Another internal characteristic that is thought to influence a group’s longevity is the group ideology. This characteristic has not been discussed relative to domestic far-right groups, but within the larger terrorism literature, it has been argued that group ideology may influence a group’s longevity. While it has been argued, very little empirical research has been done to actually determine whether or not the type of group ideology is correlated to the group’s longevity. Within the larger terrorism literature, which generally focuses on transnational terrorist organizations, groups have generally been classified as left-wing, right-wing, nationalist and religious. Cronin (2002-2003) reported that ethnonationalist and separatist groups generally existed for longer periods of time than those of other ideologies due to their broader support from the populace. Conversely, other authors have reported that groups that adhere to a nationalist or religious ideology seem to last longer than those who do not (Cronin, 2006; Hoffman, 1998; Jones & Libicki, 2008). Of these, religious groups are thought to persist for longer durations because spiritually based motivations are not easily abandoned (Rapoport, 1984; Jones & Libicki, 2008). Jones & Libicki (2008) in what appears to be the only empirical test for whether or not a group’s ideology influences it longevity found that religious groups have greater group 37 longevity than do all other types of groups. These groups had longer longevity for each of the four different time periods examined within their study. Whether or not group ideology influences how long domestic far-right extremist groups persist has not been studied to this point. Further, these ideological typologies are germane to a discussion of terrorist groups, but are not applicable in its entirety to the groups included in this study, because all the groups included are right-wing. However, within the far-right movement, several ideological differences exist, as exemplified by the numerous categories presented by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) (2012). These typologies include categories such as Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi’s, racist skinheads, Christian Identity and Neo-Confederate. These typologies suffer from over generalization, while also focusing on distinct organizations and subcultures. Further, these typologies are such that some groups could be included in multiple typologies, while others do not fit nicely into any of the categories and therefore are classified as “other” (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). Other typologies such as that by Baysinger (2006) and Kaplan (1995) are also problematic. In an attempt to create more inclusive categories, Berlet & Vysotsky (2006) and Vysotsky (2004) proposed a broader typological system for White Supremacist groups based on Kreisi, Koopmans, Duyvendak, and Guigni’s (1995) typology of New Social Movements. This typology is based on ideology and organizational activity. Within their system, they proposed three broad categories: political, religious and youth cultural organizations. By creating these broad categories, Berlet & Vysotsky (2006) believed that it would encompass all White Supremacist groups. Further, because these typologies are broad, it allows for subcategories to be created within each typology, such as those suggested by Dobratz (2001). 38 The groups within the political typology are rooted in neo-fascist or neo-Nazi ideologies and share several key elements (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). The first is authoritarianism. Elite leaders will enforce the proper social structures and role and use rhetoric to praise social stability and the value of the nation over individual rights (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). They also appeal to traditional values in order to develop narrow and discriminatory definitions of nation, race and citizenship to create an “other” class of enemies. By creating a group of outsiders within the country, these groups can create scapegoats on which to blame the world’s problems and also target for persecution and violence. In addition to violence against the outsiders, these types of groups promote a revolutionary ideology against the dominant political structure, in this case the United States government (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). Political groups also engage in political activities similar to a smaller political party, which lead to the creation of a party that is prepared to assume power once the government is overthrown. The main political activity undertaken by these types of groups is information dissemination. While the main intent of information dissemination is to spread the white supremacist message to potential supporters and recruits, it may also be used as a means of intimidation when done within a variety of minority communities (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). In addition to information dissemination, political groups will also hold rallies, protests and meetings. These events serve to heighten tensions with existing out groups and to increase support by attracting individuals from the community that are sympathetic to the cause. Examples of political groups are: National Alliance, White Aryan Resistance, National Socialist Movement, White Revolution, Volksfront and National Vanguard (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). Religious groups are much easier to define. These groups are not only led by a spiritually driven ideology, but also have members that practice a religion based on those beliefs (Berlet & 39 Vysotsky, 2006). White supremacist religions provide adherents with the inspiration for their racial beliefs and for their role in the broader world. While these groups may also participate in activities very similar to political groups, they also participate in religious services, study sacred texts, and have special rituals and ceremonies (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006; Futrell & Simi, 2004). Additionally, the organizational structure of these groups reflects their religious ideology. Group leaders are the spiritual and religious leaders and advisors and are often referred to as reverend or pastor. While there are three different religious sects (Christian Identity, Creativity and Odinism) within this category, groups are similar in many respects (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006; Dobratz, 2001). Two other sects, Asatru and Wotanism, are closely related to Odinism and are also included in the typology. The final category proposed by Berlet & Vysotsky (2006) is youth cultural groups. Youth cultural groups comprise a substantial portion of the White Supremacist movement. While these groups may adhere to a broad white supremacist ideology, there is much variation within this segment of the White Supremacist movement. Berlet and Vysotsky (2006) include subcategories such as skinheads, black metal and industrial/noise/apocalyptic folk/gothic. While correlates of organizational death have not been studied for the domestic far-right based on ideological typologies, it may be an important aspect that deserves examination. Because of the aforementioned problems with most of the presented typologies, the typology presented by Berlet and Vysotsky (2006) will be utilized due to its broad nature and exclusivity of the categories. 40 Leadership Of the many possible correlates of organizational death, management has been studied extensively because leadership is extremely important in determining the viability of an organization (Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Yukl, 2002). Argenti (1976) surmised that an organization’s top management team is more important to the viability of the organization than are any of its assets or products. Because leadership and managerial competence are vitally important for the success or failure of an organization, inadequate or poor management has been cited as a major cause of organizational failure (Altman, 1983; Argenti, 1976; Fredenberger, Lipp, & Watson, 1997; Kharbanda & Stallworthy, 1985; Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Shuchman & White, 1995). Leadership studies that examined organizational failure often concentrated on specific actions taken by managers or leaders that led to failure. For example a common theme identified from this literature is management’s failure to be aware of their environment and possible negative contingencies that could affect the organization (Argenti, 1976; Benjaminson, 1984; Goldstein, 1988; Meyer, 1988; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Silver, 1992; Sloma, 1985). Further, once recognized, how management reacts to these crises is also commonly discussed in the literature (Argenti, 1976; Bibeault, 1982; Ford, 1983; Goldston, 1992; Hambrick & D’Aveni, 1988; Lorange & Nelson, 1987; Slater, 1999; Sloma, 1985; Whetten, 1988). In order to fully comprehend and explore leadership’s role in the death of domestic farright extremist groups, it was examined in several ways. First the effect of the removal of the group’s leadership was examined. The extant literature is inconsistent as to whether or not the removal of a leader or how the leader is removed has an impact on the longevity of an organization. In addition to whether or not the removal of a leader influences organizational 41 longevity, the ability of a group to transfer leadership once the leader is removed was also included in this study. The third way that leadership was studied was through an examination of organizational leadership structures. A variety of different leadership structures have been identified through the extant literature, but their influence on organizational death has not been determined. Finally, the influence on organizational death by different individual leadership types was studied. Leadership transition. Removal. The removal of the leader of an extremist or terrorist group is believed to influence that group’s ability to survive (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Nepstad & Bob, 2006; TTSRL, 2008). The terrorism literature identified three ways that leaders may be removed from their groups: being killed (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Langdon et al., 2004), being arrested (Cronin, 2006, 2009) and dying naturally (Langdon et al., 2004). Even though all three remove the leader, there is some debate as to which method impacts the longevity of the organization the most. The organizational literature has identified several other ways in which a leader may be removed or leave an organization that are not addressed in the terrorism or extremism literature. A leader may also be fired, retire or voluntarily resign/leave unexpectedly (Gephardt, 1978; Gilmore, 2003). These possible reasons for a leader leaving an organization were also included in the analysis for this project. Some such as Byman (2006) have reported that when a group leader is killed, the risk of the leader becoming a martyr and therefore spurring violence and group persistence increases. However, Langdon et al. (2004) did not find evidence to support this assumption. Arresting and 42 incarcerating the individual may prove more effective at slowing or halting operations, than killing the leader (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Hudson 1999). However, if the incarcerated leader still has contact with the outside world and can influence the group from within a prison cell, the group may continue to persist and carry out terrorist attacks (Cronin, 2006; Langdon et.al, 2004; Jordan, 2009). Additionally, housing an imprisoned terrorist leader can be a liability for the government because hostages may be taken in order to negotiate the release of the incarcerated leader (Cronin, 2009). The literature to this point has been inconclusive as to whether the killing or arresting of a leader is the most effective method to decapitate a group and cause its death. Death by natural causes was also examined in one study (Langdon et al., 2004). They found that when a leader dies naturally, groups tend to persist with little disruption. Succession. If a leader is removed, they must be replaced in order for the group to survive. The transition to a new leader can be a difficult and vulnerable time for a group because organizations that undergo management succession are prone to failure immediately following the succession of the manager. Haveman (1993) has suggested it is similar to the organization’s liability of newness being reset and starting over. As the organization survives, each successive year results in a lower chance of failure. However, immediately following a succession event, Haveman (1993) reported that an organization may have as large as a 95% chance of failure. This is especially true for organizations that undergo a succession event early in their life history. Additionally, the level of bureaucratization of the organization may influence the success of a succession event. Succession is viewed as a natural process in more bureaucratized organizations and therefore is accounted for by the bureaucratic structure. In less bureaucratized organizations (like in extremists groups), managerial succession may be much more disruptive (Grusky, 1961). 43 The number of founders may also influence succession success. Although some organizations are founded by one individual, others are founded by groups of people. A founder that maintains multiple administrative positions will have a larger ideological and overall influence on the organization, while a founder that is part of a larger group that only maintains one administrative position, will have a smaller influence on the organization (Haveman & Khaire, 2004). Founders that occupy multiple positions may be more difficult to replace than are those that only occupy a single position. A founder, who occupied multiple roles, will have a larger influence on that organization’s ability to persist after their departure than those who fulfill fewer roles within the organization (Haveman & Khaire, 2004). Created by an Ideological leader. Also salient to this discussion is an ideological founder’s influence on the organization during and after succession. Even though this particular concept will not be specifically measured or tested, ideology plays an important role within the far-right organizations, and this discussion provides relevant background information concerning the types of groups included in this study. Ideological entrepreneurs are interested in doing more than simply founding a business and making a profit. They intend to create something that lasts and may promote love, hate, religion, politics, or other belief systems (Haveman & Khaire, 2004), and therefore create value-rational organizations, rather than instrumentally rational organizations. The founder’s belief system or ideology provides such a deep influence on the organization, the ideology is the life blood of the organization, sustains it and basically gives the organization a reason for existing. However, once founder succession occurs, the life sustaining force has been removed from the organization (Haveman & Khaire, 2004). Even though a 44 successor may be found with the same ideology as the founder, it is difficult to find a successor that believes as passionately in the ideology and the organization. This may result in lost organizational vision, poor organizational performance and eventually organizational death. Conversely, a less zealous founder may be more readily replaced because their commitments to the organization and its goals are more easily replicated (Haveman & Khaire, 2004). Succession to a new generation. Closely related to leadership succession is whether or not a group can transition to the next generation. A failure to transition to the next generation has been identified as a potential correlate of group death (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). Even though far-right groups are thought to be more able to transition to the next generation, than are far-left groups due to the nature of their ideology and goals (Hoffman, 1998), this is still considered a reason that could cause the death of a far-right organization (Cronin, 2006, 2009a; 2009b). Some debate exists as to how to best operationalize this concept. Some such as Cronin (2006, 2009a, 2009b) differentiate the ability to transition to the next generation from a loss of popular support. McCauley (2008) believed that after an examination of her examples of generational transition failure that it is a direct result of a loss of popular support and loss of recruits and therefore should be subsumed under a loss of popular support. While McCauley’s view is important, a failure to transition to the next generation is more than simply recruiting because it also involves replacing leadership. Replacing leadership could occur from within the group, regardless of outside support, and therefore I believe these categories should remain separate and should be included in this discussion of leadership. 45 Terrorist group leadership structures. Group leadership structures have received some interest from scholars, but not in the context of organizational death. Even though how group leadership is structured has not been examined in this context, leadership and leaders may play a role in organizational longevity (Crenshaw, 1988). Because leadership may play a role in whether or not an organization lives or dies, an examination of how leadership is organized and structured is warranted. The leadership structures are dependent on the overall organizational structure of the group (Kilberg, 2011). Four main types of organizational structures have emerged from previous studies: the market structure, an all-channel network, the hub-spoke structure and the bureaucratic structure (Kilberg, 2011). While the focus of this study is not the overall organizational structure, the leadership within each overall structure is organized differently and will be highlighted. The market structure is very loosely organized. These types of groups do not have readily identifiable leadership, are not centrally controlled and have little to no functional differentiation (Kilberg, 2011, 2012). This type of structure, when applied to hate and terrorism groups, is known as leaderless resistance (Kilberg, 2012). This “structure” is commonly utilized by Islamic terrorist groups (Sageman, 2008) and is advocated by white supremacist stalwarts Tom Metzger and Louis Beam (Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 2002; Beam, 1992). Within this framework, individuals or small groups of individuals carry out operations without any direct leadership (ADL, 2002; Beam, 1992). This type of “organization” is not susceptible to government infiltration and is a much more viable form than is the pyramidal organization (Beam, 1992, Chermak, 2002; Kaplan & Weinburg, 1998). However, Snowden (2005) believed that because far-right activists commonly leave and join groups that it may not be as difficult to infiltrate a “leaderless” group as was previously thought. 46 The second type of organizational structure is the all-channel network (Kilberg, 2011, 2012). Leadership exists within this structure, but it is loosely coordinated and diversified. The leadership in this type of structure is mainly inspirational, while most decision making is left to the node commanders (Kilberg, 2011). This particular structure has emerged as a result of the information age (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 2001). These groups depend on fast, multi-directional communications to survive (Kilberg, 2011, 2012). With the proliferation of email, mobile phones and other technological advances, fast, multi-directional communications are easier to maintain than in the more recent past (Kilberg, 2011). The hub and spoke network is the third organizational structure identified by Kilberg (2011, 2012). In this structure, group members are bound to a central node that they must go through to communicate and coordinate with others. These groups are functionally differentiated and have a leader, but do not have central control. This structure is similar to the wheel-type or centrifugal structure proposed by Crenshaw (1985), Mullins (1988), and Zawodny (1983). However, in their structure, the leader was the “hub” and was centrally located, which allowed for intimate relationships with followers (Crenshaw, 1985, Mullins, 1988; Zawodny, 1983). Further, because the leadership is intimately involved with other group members, they are directly involved in both violent and non-violent group activities. Because they are so intimately involved, this type of structure breeds intense loyalty within the group and also allows leaders to maintain order and discipline (Mullins, 1988; Zawodny, 1983). The final structure identified by Kilberg (2011, 2012) is the bureaucratic structure. This structure is characterized by functional differentiation, levels of management and a clearly defined, centralized leadership. This structure is the most hierarchical of all the organizational structures. This particular structure has received the most attention from other scholars. While 47 the type of hierarchical structure varies, a hierarchical structure with centralized leadership at the top is the most commonly identified organizational structure. The centralized leadership at the top of these groups can take different forms. Some have proposed groups with ruling councils (Crenshaw, 1985; Horgan and Taylor, 1997; Mullins, 1988; Wolf, 1978). These councils are similar to a board of trustees in a traditional business (Mullins, 1988). Others such as Zawodny (1983) proposed a hierarchical structure with a single strong leader at the top. Each type of structure provides benefits. The market or leaderless resistance structure is not susceptible to government infiltration, which could lead to the death of the group (Beam, 1992, Chermak, 2002; Kaplan & Weinburg, 1998). Because of the close relationship between the leader and the followers in the centrifugal structure, communication is rapid and the leader is able to modify plans to take advantage of exigencies that may present themselves (Mullins, 1988; Zawodny, 1983). Conversely, a bureaucratic structure maintains formal communication routes and the leaders often times cannot take advantage of circumstances that require a quick response (Zawodny, 1983). However, a hierarchical structure allows for more control over group operations and centralized decision making (Kilberg, 2011, 2012). Because of different advantages and disadvantages to each organizational and leadership structure, groups act and react differently. Something as simple as a leader’s ability to communicate with their subordinates could impact the organization positively or negatively (Zawodny, 1983). These differences in structure may have implications for whether the group lives or dies. This study explored how these structures influenced group longevity as this topic had not been previously addressed. Types of leaders. 48 While the organizational leadership structures may be important for determining group behaviors and their ability to persist, the individual group leaders may also have an influence, or as Ezekiel (2002) stated: “There is no White racist movement without its leaders” (p. 56). While the types of individual leaders have not received much interest in the larger terrorism and extremism literature, it has received some attention from social movement scholars. The white supremacist movement is not traditionally thought of as a social movement. However, some such as Dobratz and Shanks-Meile (2006) and Beck (2008) have argued that it should be considered a social movement and Perlstein (1995) stated that it is important to study social movements that are often ignored. Leadership is important to social movements. Leaders set goals, mobilize followers, enact strategies and build coalitions (Nepstad & Bob, 2006). Because leaders are so closely linked to the organizations they lead, the success and survival of the organization are top priorities for the leader (Crenshaw, 1988). Leadership plays an important role at each organizational level and stage, and the success of the movement is closely linked to the forms of leadership, their ideas and their acceptance by the followers (Barker, Johnson, & Lavalette, 2001). Wilson (1973) distinguished three types of leaders within social movements: charismatic, ideological and pragmatic leaders. Even though Wilson (1973) identified all three types of leadership as being present within social movements, only charismatic leadership has received any attention from terrorism and extremism scholars. By ignoring other types of leaders, scholars have potentially ignored a substantial proportion of the leaders of extremist and terrorist groups. Charismatic, ideological and pragmatic leadership. 49 Charismatic leadership has been studied extensively in the organizational literature with Weber (Gerth & Mills, 1946), House (1977), Bass (1985) and Conger and Kanungo (1998) providing some of the most influential studies. Similarly, charismatic leadership is also the most commonly studied form of leadership within the terrorism and extremism literature, but few actually discuss what specific characteristics are exhibited by a charismatic leader. Wilson (1973) in his book about social movements is one of the few that provided a detailed discussion of characteristics of charismatic leaders and movements led by charismatic leaders. Others have profiled specific leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini (Palmer & Palmer, 2004) and detailed why this particular leader is considered to be charismatic. Other studies simply identify a leader as charismatic or discuss “charismatic leaders” without much discussion of what constitutes a charismatic leader (for examples see Borum 2004; Cragin & Daly, 2004; Post, 2005; Post, Ruby & Shaw, 2002. Ideological and pragmatic leadership have received even less attention in the terrorism and extremism literature. Wilson (1973) again provided a detailed discussion of characteristics of these two types of leadership within social movements. The lack of recognition within the terrorism and extremism literature that these two types of leadership exist is potentially a severe shortcoming. It is entirely possible that all three types of leaders exist within the American far-right. Even though only charismatic leadership has received any attention from terrorism and extremism scholars, it is difficult to believe that only a charismatic leadership style is important to explain group behavior. Similarly, as Wilson (1973) believed, it is entirely possible that forms other than charismatic leadership are more common within social movements. Borum (2004) also believed that leadership types other than charismatic may be present within terrorist groups. 50 He does not identify what other types may be present, but states that “effective leaders do not necessarily need to be charismatic” (p. 61). Further, Borum (2011) realized that all terrorist groups require certain functions to ensure their survival to be carried out, regardless of the leader’s style. By not studying these other types of leadership styles, important insights may be missed to not only help explain overall terrorist or extremist group behavior, but for the importance of this study, how these structures influence group longevity. This study began to address the shortcomings related to all three types of leadership. By applying an innovative, systematic coding scheme from within organizational psychology (Mumford, 2006), all three types of leaders were systematically identified and examined to determine their role in the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Multiple leaders. The possibility of multiple types of leaders of terrorist and extremist groups has also not received much attention from terrorism or extremism scholars. Aminzade, Goldstone and Perry (2001) believed that successful movements may be led by two types of leaders. They suggested that in order for a movement to be successful, it may require more than being led by a charismatic leader or by only a pragmatic leader. Because each type of leader possesses a different skill set, a movement that is led by a charismatic leader and also a pragmatic leader may be more successful than those led by a single leader of either type (Aminzade et al., 2001). While some leaders may possess both visionary/charismatic and task oriented/pragmatic skill sets, many do not. In situations where a leader is lacking one or the other, cooperation between two leaders each possessing the appropriate skill set may be advantageous to the movement 51 (Aminzade et al., 2001). The possibility of multiple leadership types leading domestic extremist groups has not been studied to this point. This possibility could provide important previously undiscovered insights into groups that are led by more than one person. CIP Model. A very important study of outstanding leadership was conducted by Mumford (2006). This study is important because he identified that charismatic, ideological and pragmatic leaders were distinct types of leaders and could be differentiated from one another. Further, he determined that subtypes (personalized and socialized) of each type of leader also existed. It was important to identify the three types because, traditionally, leadership studies have proposed that outstanding leadership emerged from a singular pathway-charismatic or transformational leadership, which depended on the leader’s ability to articulate a legitimate, future-oriented vision (Mumford, 2006). Mumford (2006) believed this to be limiting because: charismatic leadership may not be effective in all situations; the focus on charismatic leadership may have caused scholars to forget about other characteristics or strategies that could be effective; and the focus on charismatic leadership has led to scholars trying to force different leaders to fit that particular model (p. 271). Further, Mumford believed that it was not solely the leader’s ability to articulate a future oriented vision that led to outstanding leadership, but rather the leader’s creation of a prescriptive mental model, which will provide the foundation for the follower’s sensemaking (Mumford, 2006). He examined 120 notable historical leaders, 20 from each type of leadership, and employed a historiometric method for data collection and coding, where academic biographies were utilized. These leaders were each examined based on four behaviors believed to be 52 extremely important to the execution of outstanding leadership: problem-solving activities, leader-follower relationships, communication strategies and political tactics. He found that significant differences existed across the leadership types for all four behavioral domains (Mumford, 2006), which meant that each type was distinctive and could lead to outstanding leadership. This study is not only important to the overall study of leadership, but also to this examination of domestic far-right leadership. Similar to organizational scholars, terrorism and extremism scholars have also focused almost exclusively on charismatic leadership. If other forms of leadership exist among a group of notable world leaders, then it is entirely possible, that these three types of leaders exist within the domestic far-right. Further, this study also introduced a method that can be employed in this study as well. Because data on terrorist and extremist groups is sometimes difficult to obtain, a historiometric approach, which looks at historical information provided the needed information for this study as well. Additionally, Mumford (2006) developed a listing of characteristics that can be used to distinguish between the three types of leaders. These lists will be used for the current study. Mumford’s study has moved the discussion of types of outstanding leadership forward within the organizational literature by showing that different types of leaders, other than charismatic, not only exist, but could be outstanding leaders. By following Mumford (2006)’s approach, this study may be able to accomplish the same within the terrorism and extremism literature. Violent vs. Nonviolent Groups Very little research to this point has examined differences between violent and nonviolent groups. Obviously, one main difference is whether or not group members choose to 53 become involved in ideological violence. Chermak et al. (2013) found some significant differences between groups that participated in ideological violence, and those that did not. They examined a variety of factors and found that groups that were larger, older, specifically recruited youth and advocated for leaderless resistance were more likely to be involved in ideological violence. While these types of findings are certainly interesting, no one has addressed whether or not the reasons for organizational death differ between violent and non-violent groups. However, some of their findings may inform this current study. Their study suggested that violent organizations are more likely to be larger organizations. Other terrorism research (Jones & Libicki, 2008) found that larger organizations tend to persist for longer periods of time than do smaller organizations. Further, if groups are specifically recruiting youth members, this may speak to the type of group ideology present, which has been suggested may also influence whether or not a group may survive (Jones & Libicki, 2008). They also found that groups that advocated for leaderless resistance were more likely to be violent. Because of the focus on leadership in this study, it will be interesting to determine if the groups that advocate for leaderless resistance and those that actually practice leaderless resistance are the same. Finally, while police intervention was not studied by Chermak et al. (2013), one would assume that police intervention would be commonplace among groups that participate in ideological violence. However, it is unknown if it is a substantial factor in whether or not the group lives or dies. If a violent group is large, as the research suggests, then they may be able to absorb some losses of group members to police intervention as a result of their violent behavior. 54 Conclusion The correlates of organizational death have been addressed to a degree within both the organizational and the terrorism and extremism literature. A variety of external and internal correlates have been identified. Even though some of the specific correlates identified in the organizational literature may not be applicable to the current study, the broad categories (economic, competition etc.) provided a framework within which previously untested correlates related to terrorist or extremist groups were applied. This interdisciplinary approach enhances the terrorism and extremism knowledge base, as these types of correlates have been largely ignored by scholars. This same interdisciplinary approach guided the leadership focus as well. Neither leadership structures nor specific leadership characteristics have been examined within the terrorism and extremism literature relative to organizational death. The following chapter will delve further into how these correlates are operationalized, measured and tested. 55 Chapter 3 Chapter 3 outlines the data and research methodology for this dissertation. This project systematically examines a large number of domestic far-right extremist groups to determine general causes of organizational death, and specifically how leadership influences an organization’s longevity. The data were acquired first from existing databases, and then these data were enhanced through an original data collection. The following chapter consists of several sections. The first section discusses how groups and leaders that are included in this study were identified. The second section discusses how the data were collected. Third, a discussion of the coding scheme follows including how each variable was operationalized and measured. Finally, this chapter will conclude with a discussion of the types of quantitative analysis that were utilized for this study. Research Design This study drew from data currently contained within the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). The ECDB is an open source, relational database that consists of violent incidents committed by extremists such as homicides; bombings and arsons committed by environmental and animal rights extremists and plots inspired by Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremists (Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald & Parkin, 2014). In addition to violent incidents, it also includes information on financial crimes committed by extremists such as money laundering and terrorism financing (Freilich et al., 2014) and information on domestic right-wing groups (Chermak et al., 2013). While this database contains a wealth of information concerning extremism in America, the portion containing the domestic right-wing groups was utilized for this project. 56 Sample selection. In order to identify a sample of groups for inclusion, chronologies included in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report and Klanwatch were utilized. The Intelligence Report is a quarterly publication produced by the SPLC that reports on extremism in America. Once a year, the SPLC creates a Hate Map that lists the locations of all known hate groups in America. The yearly publication of the Hate Map allowed for the identification of known far-right extremist groups, where they were located, and the years that they were active. No other publication produces a comprehensive annual list. Even though scholars have noted problems with the procedures utilized by the SPLC to identify hate incidents and groups (see Chermak, 2002; Freilich & Pridemore, 2006), the SPLC has consistently used the same procedures to identify groups over time by relying on “hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports” (SPLC, 2012) (Chermak et al., 2013). Another advantage to using the SPLC’s listings is that they include information on both non-violent and violent groups. This is a distinct advantage over law enforcement reports, which are only able to track those groups who are criminally active. Finally, the SPLC does not include websites that are the work of one person not affiliated with a group. Because they exclude those websites, they only include those groups that consist of two or more individuals, who are seeking to advance an extremist ideology and are identifiable as actual groups (Chermak et al., 2013). The time frame of 1990-2008 was chosen because the ECDB data was collected through open sources and information prior to 1990 would be difficult to collect (Chermak et al., 2013). The end date of 2008 was chosen to make data collection reasonable and to provide an adequate period of time for group identification, collection of information, and for groups to survive or die. Initially, a list of 6,000 groups was compiled based on the SPLC annual reports. From this 57 list, groups that did not persist for at least three years were eliminated. These groups were eliminated based on prior research that has examined organizational violence (see Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), 2008). Additionally, by only including groups that persisted for three years, the included groups demonstrated the ability to survive, which may indicate a strong commitment to the group and an increased threat posed by the group. Also, by including groups that persisted for three years, the likelihood that open source information was available increased (Chermak et al., 2013). Of the approximately 6,000 original groups, 550 met the previous criteria. A random sample of half of the 550 groups (N=275) was selected for inclusion in the ECDB. While most of the organizations included in the database consisted of only a single chapter, some organizations had multiple chapters. When multiple chapters of an organization were evident, an umbrella organization was coded, which included all open source information for the group regardless of the number of chapters (Chermak et al., 2013). For example, twenty-four chapters of the World Church of the Creator were identified by the SPLC, but only one entry for the World Church of Creator was included in the database (Chermak et al., 2013). Once the groups were selected, a comprehensive data collection approach was necessary because while monitoring groups such as the SPLC or the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) collect a lot of information about extremist groups, their coverage is incomplete and only some of it is publicly available. To overcome this obstacle, a protocol was developed to gather all documents, reports, court cases, media reports, blogs and other available information. Information was gathered by utilizing 26 search engines such as Google, News Library, Lexis-Nexis, Infotrac and All the Web to find all available information on each group and its members (Chermak et al., 2013). The initial search consisted of the group’s name, but as additional information was identified, subsequent searches were 58 conducted until all possible leads were exhausted. In the event that open source information was lacking from the initial searches, targeted searches were conducted in order to gather as much information as possible (Chermak et. al, 2013). Once each group was searched, that information was examined to determine whether or not the group also met the ECDB “far-right” definition. The ECDB defined the far-right as: They are fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty (especially their right to own guns, be free of taxes), believe in conspiracy theories that involve a grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty and a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (sometimes such beliefs are amorphous and vague, but for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in or supporting the need for paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. (Freilich & Chermak, 2010 pg. 21). In addition to meeting the ECDB far-right definition, each group also had to be considered a “group” as defined by the ECDB. The ECDB defines a group as: “an identifiable organization (e.g., has name) comprised of two or more individuals that adheres to a far-right, jihadist, Arab nationalist or animal/environmental rights extremist ideology and seeks political objectives to further the ideology.” (Freilich & Chermak, 2010 pg. 268). If a group did not meet these two definitions, it was replaced by a randomly selected group. As noted earlier, one of the objectives of this dissertation is to compare groups that persisted for three years to those that died prior to persisting for three years. In order to conduct 59 this analysis, groups that did not persist for three years were sampled (N=135) from the remaining 5,450 groups in the original list compiled for the ECDB. A sample size of 135 was chosen to provide enough variation and power to be able to detect differences between the two sets of groups. Each group was searched according to the same protocol as the original ECDB sample. In the event that no information could be found for a particular group, a replacement group was randomly selected from the list, substituted for the original group and searched according to the open source protocol. Thirty-one groups that were originally selected had to be replaced due to no information being found. Substitution has been used in survey research as a method to decrease non-response rates, and is appropriate when weighting responses is not appropriate and when a similar respondent to that originally chosen could be selected (Chapman & Roman, 1985). A similar approach was used to replace groups for which no open source information was found. Data Collection Open source searching. The ECDB relied on open source data collection methods to obtain information for the initial 275 groups in the database. An open source data collection similar to that used for the ECDB was utilized to collect information about the remaining groups and the leaders included in the proposed study (see Appendix IV) There are three steps to collecting information on each group or leader using this protocol. The first step is to use key words, in this case, the group name or leader name and enter it in the primary search engines, which consists of a variety of well-known search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Lexis-Nexis. Once all pertinent information is collected from the primary 60 search engines, the group name or leader name would be entered into the secondary search engines. The secondary search engines such as: Google Scholar, Mamma, Dogpile and Scirus are less well known than the primary search engines, but may also provide important information on each group or leader. The second step is to capture all pertinent information in a file, so that it may be utilized by coders. It is also important to capture the information during the search because information on the Internet is fluid and it may disappear before the coder can return to that particular website (Carter, 2010). The third step is to search each group or leader again using important facts obtained from the initial search. For example, key personnel or specific events or locations may be important facts that could be used to conduct a follow-up search. As before, each search term would be entered into the primary search protocol first, followed by the secondary search protocol. Advantages to open source searching. The use of open sources to collect information on far-right extremist groups and their leaders has several advantages. The first advantage is that ideological groups and adherents often want to share their goals and ideology with others in an attempt to recruit others to their cause. These extremists will often post this information online, in print or in other types of broadcast media (Carter, 2010). The second advantage is that a researcher can tailor the data collection to their needs and their operationalization of concepts, rather than relying on official government sources. Official government data that were collected for particular projects or purposes may have biases related 61 to those projects or purposes (Lafree, Dugan, Fogg & Scott, 2006). By conducting an original open source collection, a researcher may take advantage of all publicly available information. A third advantage is that open source data collection is a common approach to studying terrorism (Chermak et al., 2012; Lafree & Dugan, 2004; Noble, 2004). Further, research articles using ECDB data have been published in many top journals. An article examining research methods in terrorism and extremism data collections by Chermak, Freilich, Parkin and Lynch (2012) was published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Additionally, articles using ECDB data that examined lone wolf terrorists (Gruenewald, Chermak & Freilich, 2013), the organizational dynamics of far-right hate groups (Chermak et al., 2013), compared ideological homicides to other homicides (Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012) and identified critical events in the life trajectory of far-right extremist groups (Freilich et al., 2009) have all been published in top journals. Disadvantages to open source data collection. Even though open source data collection provides several advantages, it is not without some important disadvantages regarding the reliability and validity of the collected information. The first limitation is ensuring that the information collected is reliable and valid (Noble, 2004). When using open sources, especially the Internet, it is important to be able to assess the veracity of the information collected, since anyone can post information on the Internet (Noble, 2004). Even sites that should be fairly reliable like media sites can be guilty of posting incorrect or misinformation (Lafree et al., 2006). To address this issue, Noble (2004) suggested that open source information should be assessed based on the historical accuracy of the source, whether it is consistent with known facts and whether it is consistent with other reliable sources. He further 62 suggested that open source researchers should assess the reliability of their sources and keep track of these assessments over a period of time. Like misinformation, lack of information can also be problematic (Noble, 2004). Information for groups or leaders of groups that were not very active, or that did not participate in an event that attracted the attention of the media may be scarce or difficult to find. This may be especially true for those groups that did not exist for three years. However, every effort should be made to collect as much information as possible in order to triangulate the information to ensure its accuracy (Noble, 2004). A final limitation is related to the actual data collection, rather than the information collected. By conducting Internet searches, it allowed for a number of research assistants to simultaneously collect information on far-right groups. However, ensuring that the searchers were all collecting information in a consistent fashion could pose a threat to the reliability of the information collected if inter-searcher reliability was low. To reduce the problems with this type of reliability, each searcher was trained in how to utilize the open source protocol and to collect and organize information found during their searches. Each searcher also served a probationary period, during which time their completed searches were checked for accuracy. Additionally, the written search protocol ensured that each searcher would conduct their searches in the same manner. Further, the computer based protocol ensured that each group would be searched using the same twenty-six search engines. For this project, the quality of the open source information is assessed for each group. The total number of data sources, the number of each individual type of data source (websites, media sources, court documents etc.) and how consistent the information is relative to the group 63 is collected. Other issues that could affect the reliability of the data for each group may also be logged and identified for each group. Data collection for this project. The data collection for this project was in three parts. The ECDB was a pre-existing database containing 275 domestic far-right extremist groups that was utilized for a prior project. This data collection enhanced the ECDB through the addition of specific variables, 135 domestic far-right extremist groups, and leadership data. The first part collected the remaining variables not currently in the ECDB for the original 275 groups. In addition to collecting the new variables, the variables already contained in the database were cleaned and checked for accuracy. The second part was to identify and collect the data for the groups that did not persist for three years (N=135). Each group was treated as a case study and searched according to the ECDB open source search protocol. All pertinent information was gathered and entered into a document to prepare for coding. The third part of the data collection was to collect the leadership data. Some leadership data had already been collected but was not cleaned. For example, the organizational leadership structure data for the groups included in the ECDB had already been collected, but had not been cleaned. The remaining leadership data were collected. Through open source searches that followed the ECDB protocol, an attempt was made to collect leadership data for the groups that did not persist for three years. Because of the limited information available about these groups, leadership information was scarce. Both organizational leadership structures and individual group leaders were not often identified, and when they were, little information was available. Due to the scarcity of information, analyses examining 64 leadership characteristics of groups that did not persist for three years was not possible. However, even though little information regarding leadership was available for groups that did not persist for three years, examining how leadership impacts the organizational death of farright extremist groups that persisted for more than three years remains an important part of this study. Coding Correlates of organizational death. Dependent variables. Two dependent variables were examined for this study. Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables are presented in Table 3.1. The first dependent variable used was a dichotomous measure of group death: whether or not the group died (0/1). Whether or not a group died was determined by either explicit information gleaned from the open sources that provided proof that the group died, or if the group disappeared from the open sources. Once a group no longer appeared in the open sources, it was considered defunct if it did not appear for five consecutive years. The five year waiting period was consistent with other organizational studies (Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), 2008). The second dependent variable examined was a dichotomous measure of whether a group died prior to reaching three years of age: group died prior to three years of age (0/1)1. 1 A continuous measure of years to death was considered as a dependent variable. However, the requirement that groups exist for three concurrent years post 1990 did not preclude groups from existing for a number of years prior to 1990, as long as they also existed for three concurrent years post 1990. Open source information for the years prior to 1990 was scarce and resulted in large amounts of missing data for several independent variables. For example, no group density information is available prior to 1990. The amount of missing data was so extensive that imputation or substitution methods would not have been appropriate. 65 Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for Dependent Variables Variable N Frequency Group Death Group Died 117 42.5 Group Did Not die 158 57.5 135 32.9 Group did not Die Prior to Three Years 275 67.1 Group Died Prior to Three Years Group Died Prior to Three Years Independent variables. External variables. Several external factors were examined for this study. For a summary of how the external variables were operationalized see Appendix V. Descriptive statistics for these variables are presented in Table 3.2 and 3.3, and a correlation matrix for these variables is presented in Appendix VI. Two economic factors were examined. The first was a dichotomous variable of whether or not the group was located in an urban county (Abel et al., 2012; Florida, 2012; Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998; Smith, 1994). The type of county was determined based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. The 1993 code was used for those groups that existed only in the 1990’s and the 2003 code was used for those groups that existed after 2000. All groups that were coded as an “urban” group based on the USDA codes was then coded as “1”. All other groups were coded as “0”. The other economic factor was a continuous measure that captured the percentage of people living in poverty for the 66 county where the group was located. The poverty measure was gathered from the United States Census and was available for the year’s 1990 and 2000. The 1990 measure was used for those groups that occurred only in the 1990’s, while the 2000 measure was used for groups that survived after 2000. The second external factor was a measure of competition. This measure was a continuous variable that captured the average number of extremist groups that existed within the state where the group of interest was located (Crenshaw et al., 2011). The number of groups that existed in each state for each year was compiled from the yearly listing of extremist groups in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report. The group’s use of technology was the third external factor. This variable was a dichotomous measure of whether or not the group utilized the Internet (0/1). This variable was coded based on open sources. The next external factor that was captured was a measure of government and legal restraints. This variable was a dichotomous measure of whether or not police intervention impacted the group (0/1), and was coded from open sources. A measure of social change was the next external factor that was used for this study. This variable was a continuous measure of the percentage of racial heterogeneity for the county where the group was located. This information was also drawn from the United States Census data and followed the same coding procedure as the poverty measure. Finally, political vulnerability was captured through the use of two variables. The first was a continuous measure of state government ideology as measured by Berry et al., 1998 and Gilliard-Matthews, 2011. This data was gathered from the Richard C. Fording Dataverse and included state government ideology scores from 1960 through 2006. Because the scores are available for every year, the average score for all the years a group existed was utilized. These scores ranged from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating increased liberalism (Gilliard67 Matthews, 2011). Because there is not extreme variation in a state’s government ideology from year to year, years 2007 and 2008 were estimated based on the last year (2006) that a measure was available (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). The other political measure was a categorical variable that captured the presidential voting history for each state that had an extremist group (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). This variable was coded as to whether or not the state where the group was located was a blue or red state in presidential elections. If a group only existed during the term of one president, then this measure was simply whether or not it occurred in a red or blue state. However, if a group persisted into two or more presidential terms, the variable could have also coded as a “purple” state. A state was classified as a “purple” state if the voters of that state supported a candidate for president from one political party in an election and then the candidate from the other political party in the next election. 68 Table 3.2 Descriptive Statistics for Continuous External Factors All Groups Combined More Than Three Year Groups Less Than Three Year Groups Variable Min Max Mean S.D. Min Max Mean S.D. Min Max Mean S.D. Poverty Rate Racial Heterogeneity Government Ideology 0.036 0.351 0.124 0.050 0.036 0.325 0.124 0.050 0.036 0.351 0.122 0.049 0.014 0.710 0.335 0.192 0.014 0.710 0.340 0.198 0.017 0.710 0.326 0.179 2.170 94.771 49.471 20.035 2.170 91.080 48.421 19.513 4.500 94.771 51.572 20.955 * 58.000 16.640 10.887 0.600 58.000 17.208 10.987 1.000 52.000 15.500 10.632 Group Density 0.600 * In a few cases, the open sources indicated groups persisted in years no groups were recorded by the SPLC, which caused the average group density to fall below 1. 69 The descriptive statistics for the continuous variables is fairly consistent across group samples. Small differences exist, but no extreme values were found that might skew the results for any of the group samples. Within each sample of groups, the Government Ideology measure appears to exhibit quite a bit of variation, which means that groups are distributed in states that are both liberal and conservative. The Group Density measure is fairly interesting. It ranges from an average of approximately one group to 58 groups, with a mean of roughly 16 for each sample of groups. This shows that group densities vary quite a bit from state to state. Some states do not have much of a far-right presence and some states have a fairly extensive far-right presence. However, on average, groups are located in states with approximately 16 groups. 70 Table 3.3 Descriptive Statistics for Categorical and Dichotomous External Factors Variable All Groups More than Three Years Less Than Three Years Urban Non-Urban Group 19.6% 19.9% 19.2% Urban Group 80.4% 80.1% 80.8% No Police Intervention 74.4% 70.2% 82.8% Police Intervention 25.6% 29.8% 17.2% No Change in Support Level 97.5% 97.4% 97.8% Lost Public Support 2.5% 2.6% 2.2% Blue State 56.8 % 29.5% 56.3% Red State 43.2% 28.7% 43.7% Police Intervention Lost Public Support Presidential Election Results Purple State 41.8% Use of the Internet Used the Internet 42.3% 55.3% 16.3% Did not Use the Internet 57.7% 44.7% 83.7% 71 The descriptive statistics for all three sets of groups are fairly consistent. However, two variables do exhibit some variation. A lack of police intervention is higher for the groups that did not persist for three years than for the groups that persisted for more than three years and all the groups. This may be due to these groups not persisting for very long. In order to come to the attention of law enforcement, groups must participate in some type of event that would alert law enforcement to their presence. These groups may not have simply had the organizational capacity to participate in these types of events (Chermak et al., 2013). Further, if a group does attract law enforcement attention, they must also do something illegal which would warrant a police response. Most of these groups probably did not exist long enough to attract law enforcement attention. The second variable that exhibited quite a bit of variation is the use of the Internet by groups that did not persist for three years. Since these groups did not persist for very long, they may have either not had an Internet presence, or may have had a short-lived Internet presence that was not captured in the open sources. This interesting because it would seem that establishing a web presence, would be a fairly easy step to take, especially with the potential recruiting and fundraising benefits a web presence would make possible (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). The variable that measured whether or not a group lost public support did not exhibit much variation. It was difficult to capture this variable, and was subsequently dropped from analyses. Internal variables. 72 Like external factors, internal factors may also play a role in the death of a right-wing extremist group. For a summary of how the internal factors are operationalized see Appendix VII. Descriptive statistics for these variables are presented in Table 3.4, and a correlation matrix for these variables is presented in Appendix VIII. The first internal variable was a dichotomous measure that captured whether or not the organization suffered from factional splitting (Cronin, 2009a; Horgan, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008; McCauley, 2008; Oots, 1989; TTSRL, 2008). Organizational size was the second internal variable included in this study. This was a dichotomous measure that captured whether a group had more than 200 members or less than 200 members (Chermak et al., 2013). The specific size of organizations is not frequently available from open sources. However, information for large groups (more than 200 members) is more likely to be noted in open sources (Chermak et al., 2013). The third internal factor that was included in this study was group ideology. This variable utilized Berlet and Vysotsky’s (2006) categorical measure and captured whether a group was (1) political, (2) religious, or (3) youth cultural. When this variable was included in the analysis, each category was dummy coded. The final internal variable captured whether or not the group suffered personnel losses (other than leaders) due to amnesty, death, imprisonment or disenchantment (Cronin, 2009a; Freilich, Chermak & Caspi, 2009; Hewitt, 2003; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; TTSRL, 2008). This was a dichotomous variable (0/1). All of the above internal variables were coded from open sources. 73 Table 3.4 Descriptive Statistics for Internal Factors Variable All Groups More than Three Years Less than Three Years Factional Splitting Factional Splitting 8.6% 10.3% 5.5% No Factional Splitting 91.4% 89.7% 94.5% Large Group 10.8% 15.6% 0.7% Small Group 89.2% 84.4% 99.3% Political Group 50.7% 53.5% 45.1% Religious Group 16.0% 19.0% 9.8% Youth Cultural Group 33.3% 27.5% 45.1% Did not Lose Group Members 85.1% 82.6% 89.6% Lost Group Members 14.9% 17.4% 10.4% Group Size Group Ideology Lost Group Members Two internal variables exhibited some variation between the sets of groups. Groups that did not persist for three years had a very low percentage of groups that reached 200 members. This was not surprising, as it takes time and recruitment effort to gain that many members. 74 Groups that did not persist for three years probably did not persist long enough to gain a large number of members. Political ideology also varied among the sets of groups. The sample of groups that did not persist for three years had a higher percentage of groups that adhered to a youth cultural ideology. This was expected. Groups that adhere to this type of ideology are often skinhead groups (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). Skinhead groups are notoriously volatile and short-lived groups, and because of their volatility, skinhead groups appear and disappear with some frequency (Moore, 1993). Further, the sample of groups that did not persist for three years also had a lower percentage of religious groups. This also was expected. Jones & Libicki (2008) found that religious groups generally survived longer than other types of groups due to the dedication of followers. If members are dedicated to a group and its religious ideology, these groups may tend to not die as quickly as others. Leadership Leadership data collection. The open source protocol discussed previously was used to collect information on the leaders for each group. However, rather than focusing on collecting simply as much information as possible on each leader, the historiometric approach was used, which was the approach that Mumford (2006) and Ligon, Harris, and Hunter (2012) used in their studies. The historiometric approach applies a content coding scheme to available historical records and information, such as financial documents, transcripts or biographies (Ligon et al., 2012). An important aspect of this method is that multiple sources of information are required in order to account for any potential biases and to truly identify the nature of the leader (Ligon et al., 2012). While Mumford (2006) 75 and Ligon et al. (2012) applied this method to historically significant outstanding leaders, this approach, with slight modification, was utilized to study leaders that occupy a less significant place in history. The leaders included in Mumford (2006) and Ligon et al. (2012) were historically significant and each was the subject of at least one academic biography. Unlike the leaders included in those studies, only some of the leaders included in this study, such as William Pierce (Griffin, 2001) and David Duke (Bridges, 1994), were of enough historical significance that a biography was written about them. Most were not. Even though academic biographies are not available for many of the leaders included in this study, other historical information is available such as transcripts and video recordings of speeches and interviews and other written works by these leaders. While these types of historical information (other than academic biographies) have not previously been used in the application of the CIP model, they have been used to determine psychological characteristics of political leaders. Hermann (1977, 1980a, 1980b, 2005) believed that a political leader’s leadership style could be ascertained based on an analysis of what they say, particularly spontaneous material: speeches and media interviews (Hermann, 2005). Because of the prepared nature of some speeches, Hermann cautions their use, but does acknowledge that care and thought have gone into their preparation and delivery (Hermann, 2005). While it is not impossible that a far-right leader may have someone prepare remarks for them, the use of speech writers is probably not commonplace among this group of leaders. However, because of the possibility that speeches are prepared remarks, she also used media interviews to determine a political leader’s leadership style. This form of communication is more spontaneous than speeches and may provide a truer account of a leader. The most spontaneous 76 interviews are those that are unexpected such as when leaving a meeting or in the corridor of a building (Hermann, 2005). While both historiometric methods and the use of leader communications could assist in the determination of a person’s leadership style, a combination of the two was the most beneficial to the current study. The following combination method was employed to collect the leadership data. First, when possible, academic biographies were employed. Second, other historical information was sought through the online open source searches that were conducted according to the ECDB search protocol. Third, sources of leader communication were a focus during the open source data collection. After the initial open source search, if needed, targeted searches were used for media websites such as YouTube in order to uncover as much communication information as possible. All of the information collected was applied to the typologies in Appendix VIII and IX. Leadership variables. Organizational leadership variables. A third group of variables captured leadership characteristics in several different ways. For a summary of how the leadership variables were operationalized see Appendix IX. Descriptive statistics for these variables are presented in Table 3.5. The first leadership variable was a dichotomous variable of whether or not the group’s leader was removed (0/1) (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Hewitt, 2003; Harmon, 2008; Hudson, 1999; Jordan, 2009; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). If the leader was removed, then the circumstances under which the leader was removed were captured with a categorical variable: (1) leader was killed or violently incapacitated (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Langdon et al., 2004), (2) leader was arrested (Cronin, 2006, 77 2009), (3) leader died from natural causes (Langdon et al., 2004), (4) leader left the group voluntarily (retired or resigned), (5) leader was fired (Gephardt, 1978; Gilmore, 2003). Related to the removal of the leader is the second leadership variable that identified whether or not the group was able to successfully transition the group’s leadership once the leader left the group (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). It was a dichotomous measure (0/1). The third leadership variable examined the organizational structure of leadership. This was a categorical measure of the types of organizational leadership structures (bureaucratic with a single leader, bureaucratic with a ruling council etc.) (Beam, 1992; Chermak, 2002; Crenshaw, 1985; Horgan & Taylor, 1997; Kaplan & Weinburg, 1998; Kilberg, 2011, 2012; Mullins, 1988; Wolf, 1978; Zawodny, 1983). These three leadership variables were all coded based on open source information. 78 Table 3.5 Organizational Leadership Descriptive Statistics >3 Year Groups Variable Frequency Percentage Leader was Removed (N=275) No 196 71.3% Yes 79 28.7% Leader was Killed/Violently Incapacitated 7 8.9% Leader was Arrested 35 44.3% Leader Died of Natural Causes 17 21.5% Leader left Voluntarily 18 22.8% Leader was Fired 1 .4% Bureaucratic with Single Leader 178 77.4% Bureaucratic with Governing Board 25 10.9% Hub and Spoke 0 0.0% Market Structure/Leaderless 21 9.1% All Channel 6 2.6% Successfully Transitioned 40 50.6% Did not Successfully Transition 39 49.4% How Leader was Removed (N=79) Organizational Leadership Structure (N=230) Leadership Transition (N=79) Leadership style. 79 The final leadership variable “leadership style” consisted of three separate measures. This variable captured specific characteristics of individual leaders. Studies usually code leadership in a dichotomous manner (see Mumford, 2006). A person is either a charismatic leader or he is not; a pragmatic leader or not, etc. It is quite possible that such strict categorization overlooks critical nuances worth capturing when comparing across leadership type. For example, it is possible that not all charismatic leaders exhibit the same level of charismatic leadership as others. Even though two leaders may both be charismatic leaders, some may be “more charismatic” or “less charismatic” than others. Further, even though a leader may be considered a particular leadership type, they may display some characteristics of a different leadership type. Conger and Kanungo (1998) reported that non-charismatic leaders may exhibit some characteristics of charismatic leaders, and Strange and Mumford (2002), reported that mixed type leaders exist and, those exhibiting both ideological and charismatic may be an effective leadership type. Further, mixed type leaders may be more closely aligned with ideological leadership traits, but they may use some charismatic leader traits to more effectively articulate their vision. Because these types of leaders exist, it is important to be able to determine the level of intensity with which a leader exhibits certain leadership characteristics. By ignoring these nuances, important insights into how leadership types influence group death may be being ignored. In order to account for these mixed type leaders, a seven point scale was created for each type of leadership based on Ligon et. al, (2013). To account for these nuances, each leader received a score for each type of leadership, charismatic, ideological and pragmatic. Ligon et. al (2013) was based on Mumford (2006), and the use of these scales represents an extension of Mumford’s leadership theory. The scale is included in Appendix XII. The characteristics were coded based on open source information that included published writings, speeches and interviews. 80 A pilot study was conducted to test the scale. Ten leaders (10%) were randomly selected from the overall sample of leaders. Each leader was coded by both the project leader and an additional coder. Reliability estimates are presented in Table 3.6. This pilot was conducted to not only test the scale, but also to train the additional coder on how to identify different leadership characteristics. Descriptive statistics and agreement estimates for the pilot and the full study are presented in Table 3.6. A correlation matrix for these leadership types is presented in Appendix X. 81 Table 3.6 Individual Leadership Style Descriptive Statistics Pilot Study Leadership Style Charismatic Ideological Pragmatic Min Max 0 4 2 7 0 5 Mean 1.100 5.500 2.900 S.D. 1.524 1.581 1.370 Full Sample Cronbach's Alpha 0.973 0.972 0.863 82 Min 0 0 0 Max 7 7 7 Mean 1.170 5.220 2.510 S.D. 2.112 1.853 1.863 Cronbach's Alpha 0.984 0.916 0.953 The descriptive statistics for the two samples of leaders are very similar, which suggests that the leaders randomly selected for the pilot study were representative of the overall sample of leaders. The minimum and maximum for each of the leadership styles in the full sample range from 0 to 7. This suggests that leaders vary across the style spectrum. For example, some are highly charismatic (7), while others do not exhibit any charismatic characteristics. These descriptives also suggest that the average far-right leader included in this study exhibited mainly ideological traits, while also exhibiting charismatic and pragmatic characteristics to a lesser extent. Reliability The accuracy and reliability of the coded data is an important part of any research project. The reliability of the original 275 groups that were included in the ECDB was ensured through several steps. The first was through the training of coders that were utilized on the project. Each coder was trained on the meaning of variables. Each coder then served a probationary period during which each coder’s work was regularly checked for accuracy. Once a coder successfully completed the probationary period, their work was periodically checked for accuracy by the project manager. Once all the groups were coded into the ECDB, all the groups were then checked for accuracy by a member of the research team. Finally, after the groups were checked for accuracy by the research team member, they were again checked for accuracy by the project manager. This multi-tiered reliability effort was necessary due to the large amounts of information contained in some of the group search files. Because of the large amount of information, variables of interest may be missed by the coder. By employing this multi-tiered process, the chances of information being missed was diminished. 83 The additional variables that were added for this project to the original groups included in the ECDB were also subjected to agreement checks. Two coders were utilized for this portion of the project. The additional coder was trained on how to code the variables. Once all the additional variables were added to the original ECDB groups, 30 groups that were coded by the second coder were randomly selected and tested for inter-rater agreement. These 30 groups were then recoded by the project manager. The inter-rater agreement results for these groups are included in Table 3.7. Most of the added variables were scores simply copied from the source into the database. For example, the measure for racial heterogeneity and poverty were drawn from the census data, and were simply copied into the database. The agreement for these measures would be expected to be very high since little decision making on the part of the coder was involved. Other measures required the coder to make decisions as to how to code a particular group. For example, the measure of group ideology required the coder to determine which of the three categories would apply to each group. These types of variables would be expected to be somewhat lower in agreement than those that were simply copied into the database. Overall, the agreement estimates were found to be very reliable. The estimate for the internal factor variables was .987, while the estimate for the external factor variables was .999. Each individual variable was then checked for agreement. All but one of the variables achieved an agreement estimate greater than 0.9. Lost Group Members only achieved a reliability estimate of .562. It appears that this variable was simply missed by the coder. Because the search files for these groups often number in the hundreds of pages, it was not surprising that sometimes a variable of interest might be missed. This variable was recoded, which corrected the agreement issue and the agreement is now 1. 84 Table 3.7 Agreement Estimates for Groups that Persisted for Three Years Variable Cronbach’s Alpha Internal Factors .987 External Factors .999 Urban .940 Poverty Rate .977 Racial Heterogeneity .992 Government Ideology .999 Presidential Election Results .901 Police Intervention 1.000 Use of the Internet 1.000 Group Density .989 Group size 1.000 Factional Splitting 1.000 Lost Group Members .562 Lost Group Members corrected 1.000 Loss of Support 1.000 The inter-rater agreement was also assessed for the 135 groups that were added that did not survive for three years. The agreement results for these groups are included in Table 3.8. Thirty groups were randomly selected for inter-rater agreement analysis. The agreement of these groups was very good. The lowest agreement estimate for any variable was .909. This high level of agreement was not surprising. The amount of information included in the search files for these 85 groups was much less than for the groups that persisted for more than three years. Because of the limited information available for these groups, there was less chance that information that pertained to a variable of interest might be missed. Table 3.8 Agreement Estimates for Groups that did not Persist for Three Years Variable Cronbach’s Alpha Internal Factors .997 External Factors 1.000 Urban 1.000 Poverty Rate 1.000 Racial Heterogeneity .998 Government Ideology .993 Presidential Election Results .909 Police Intervention .912 Group Density .996 Loss of Support 1.000 Factional splitting 1.000 Lost Group Members .947 Use of the Internet 1.000 Group Size 1.000 Group Ideology .993 Inter-rater agreement was also assessed for all the leadership variables. The results for the agreement estimates for the organizational leadership variables are presented in Table 3.9. One 86 coder other than the project manager was used to code the organizational leadership variables. They received training on how to identify the pertinent variables. Thirty of the more than three year groups that were coded by the additional coder were assessed for inter-rater agreement. Leadership variables for the groups that did not persist for three years are not included in the analysis, so their agreement estimates are not presented. One additional coder was also utilized to code each leader’s style. Prior to coding, this coder received extensive training on how to identify and apply the seven point scales for each leadership type. After receiving the training, the additional coder coded several leaders and their accuracy was checked by the project manager. When a discrepancy between the project manager and the additional coder was evident during the training period, the differences were discussed until consensus was reached. The additional coder was then allowed to code more leaders. Twenty far-right leaders that were coded by the additional coder were selected to be tested for inter-rater agreement. The agreement estimates for the individual leadership styles are presented in Table 3.10. Overall, the inter-rater agreement for the organizational leadership characteristics of the groups that persisted for more than three years was good. The lowest agreement estimate was .706. This variable was recoded. It is unknown why this particular variable was much lower than the others. Because of the large amount of information included in the search files for many of the groups that persisted for more than three years, it appears the second coder overlooked this particular variable. The remainder of the agreement estimates were over .9. 87 Table 3.9 Agreement for Organizational Leadership Variables > Three Year Groups Variable Cronbach’s Alpha Leader was Removed .955 How the Leader Was Removed .959 Leadership Transition .706 Group Leadership Structure 1.000 Agreement for the individual leadership styles was also quite good. It was expected that the agreement for these variables may be lower than for the other organizational leadership variables because coding these variables required the coder to determine how to categorize certain behaviors while listening to hours of speeches and interviews or reading literature, which can lead to interpretation issues. However, all agreement estimates were over .9. Table 3.10 Agreement Estimates for Individual Leadership Styles Leadership Style Cronbach’s Alpha Charismatic .984 Ideological .916 Pragmatic .953 Analysis This study consisted of several different analyses. The first analysis utilized logistic regression, consisted of four models and examined the relationship between external and internal factors and group death for groups that persisted for longer than three years. Even though all of these groups persisted for at least three years, some of them died later. One hundred fifty-eight of 88 the original 275 groups (57%) ceased to exist after having survived for three years. The first model tested the relationship between the external factors for these groups and whether or not the organization died. The second model tested the internal factors to see if they influenced organizational death. The third model tested the relationship between organizational death and all the significant external and internal variables from the previous models. The final model tested the relationship between group participation in violence and organizational death, while controlling for all the external and internal factors. The second analysis also consisted of four models and utilized logistic regression to examine the external and internal factors that contributed to a group failing to persist for three years. The dependent variable for this analysis was a dichotomous measure of whether or not a group failed to persist for three years. This analysis includes all of the groups included in the data collection. Four models similar to the first analysis were conducted. The third analysis consisted of several models and utilized logistic regression to examine the external and internal factors that contributed to the organizational death of specific groups. The dependent variable for these analyses was group death. This analysis was done to determine if differences existed between violent and non-violent groups relative to correlates of organizational death, and also to determine if differences existed between groups adhering to different ideologies. The fourth analysis consisted of five models and utilized logistic regression to examine the influence of group and individual leadership characteristics on organizational death. The dependent variable for all the models included in this analysis is the dichotomous measure of organizational death. The first model will examine the relationship of leadership removal and 89 organizational leadership structures and organizational death. The second model will test the relationship between several different ways that leaders may be removed and organizational death. The relationship between a group’s ability to transition leadership will be examined in the third model. The fourth model will examine whether individual leadership characteristics impact group organizational death. The final model will test the relationship between all previously significant external, internal and leadership variables and organizational death. Conclusion Correlates of organizational death were tested using existing data and also through an original data collection. The information from the groups contained in the ECDB that survived for at least three years were used, as well as the data collected on the groups that did not persist for three years. Logistic regression was used to test external and internal factors of organizational death, and also leadership’s influence on organizational death. These analyses have not previously been conducted for domestic far-right extremist groups and should provide interesting new insights into these groups. 90 Chapter 4 The purpose of this chapter is to address the first two research questions that examine the relationship between external and internal factors and the organizational death of domestic farright extremist groups. The first question focuses on the relationship between external and internal factors and group death for groups that persisted for longer than three years. The second research question examines the role of external and internal factors in whether or not a group died prior to existing for three years. The first part of this chapter presents the results for the groups that persisted longer than three years. Using logistic regression, each of these correlates (see Appendix V and VI) were tested against the dependent variable of organizational death. The second part of this chapter presents the results for all the groups. Logistic regression was also used to test the relationship between the external and internal factors and whether or not an organization died prior to reaching three years of age. Because the literature has been inconsistent as to whether external factors, internal factors, or a combination of both types of factors is more important in group death, the findings for the external and internal factors will be presented separately. Any statistically significant factors from those models will then be combined into a final model. The final section of this chapter will use logistic regression to examine specific types of groups to determine if differences exist in how external and internal factors may influence the organizational death of particular types of groups (violent vs. nonviolent etc.) External and Internal Factors for Groups that Persisted Longer than Three Years The findings from this analysis will be presented in four sections. The first section discusses the external factors and their relationship with organizational death. The second section 91 will discuss the relationship between internal factors and organizational death. The third section will discuss the relationship between all the significant factors from the two previous models and organizational death. The final section will discuss whether or not a group’s participation in violence influenced organizational death. Each section will present the findings from that particular model, as well as discuss findings of interest and how those relate to the current state of understanding of organizational death of extremist groups. External factors. Both the organizational and the terrorism/extremism literature identified external factors as important in contributing to group longevity. However, researchers have been unable to consistently identify which external factors are of greater importance in organizational death. Further, the terrorism and extremism literature does not incorporate factors described in the larger organizational literature. Since there is very little consistency within and between the organizational and terrorism/extremism literature, a wide variety of factors were included in this analysis. The following external factors were included in this model: whether a group occurred in an urban environment, county poverty rate, county racial heterogeneity, government ideology, presidential election results, group density, loss of outside support, whether the group utilized the Internet and whether or not a group was disrupted by police intervention. Only two proved to significantly influence the death of far-right organizations. The overall model Chi-Square (108.079) was significant at the .001 level. Additionally, the overall model provided a Nagelkerke R-squared of .4562. Full model results are shown in Table 4.1. 2 All models in this chapter were subjected to collinearity diagnostics. All variable inflation factors (VIF) were less than 2.5. 92 Two external factors proved to significantly influence the organizational death for extremist groups that survived three years or longer. The first was the national level political environment in which the group occurred. This captured whether the group occurred in a red (Republican), blue (Democrat), or purple (mixed) state, defined by the presidential election results during the group’s existence. This variable was dummy coded, and purple states served as the reference category. Groups that occurred in states that were strictly blue or red were more likely to die than groups that occurred in states that varied in their political support. While she looked at group mobilization, rather than group death, Gilliard-Matthews (2011) found that some white supremacist groups were negatively affected by states whose citizens who held more liberal ideologies (blue states). Similarly, she found that red states seemed to support some farright ideological groups. This analysis found that states with a liberal ideology and also those states with a more conservative ideology were not supportive of group persistence, when compared to those states with a varying political ideology. This finding contradicts previous research that reported that states with a more conservative ideology were generally more supportive of far-right ideologies (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011; Hamm, 2007). In addition, her study did not, nor has any others, accounted for states that varied in their political views (purple states). She coded states as either “red” or “blue”. This type of coding scheme does not account for political ideologies that may change over time. This study found that groups located in “purple” states were less likely to die when compared to those located in “red” or “blue” states. Because the citizens of these states vary in their political views, it is possible that these states are more tolerant of differing political ideas, and subsequently more tolerant of far-right ideologies and groups. Since quite a few states have changed their political views (and sometimes changed them back), this particular finding warrants future research. A 93 more in-depth examination of the particular nuances associated with these types of states may provide important insights into how political views affect the longevity of domestic far-right extremist groups. Interestingly, the measure of government ideology, which measured the state level ideologies of elected officials, did not have an impact on group death. This finding is similar to Gilliard-Matthews (2011), who found that sometimes one type of political ideology would influence group mobilization, but not another type. The adoption of new technology, specifically the Internet, also influenced whether a group died. Not surprisingly, not using the Internet was strongly associated with group death. Groups that did not utilize the Internet were more likely to die than were those that utilized the Internet. The Internet has allowed far-right groups to increase their recruiting, networking, information sharing and fundraising efforts, all of which could contribute to an organization persisting (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). Groups that did not use the Internet would be at a definite disadvantage to those that do utilize the Internet. Internal factors. Next, certain internal characteristics were tested to determine whether they were correlated with the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Four internal characteristics were included in this study: factional splitting, group size, group ideology and whether the group lost members due to amnesty, death, imprisonment or disenchantment. Even though the loss of group members are captured by both factional splitting and losing group members to amnesty, death, imprisonment or disenchantment, these two variables differ in the circumstances under which members leave the group. Factional splitting only captures when group members leave the group to form another group, usually due to disagreements or 94 infighting; while losing group members is a more general category of how groups may lose members. For example, a group may lose members who simply tire of the far-right movement, or the group in general, but do not leave in order to form a new group (disenchantment). Even if these members later choose to join another group, they do not leave the original group in order to form their own group, which would be factional splitting. Whether a group experienced factional splitting and group size significantly influenced the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. The overall Chi-Square (37.898) was significant at the .001 level. The model produced a Nagelkerke R-squared of .194. Full model results are presented in Table 4.1 The first significant characteristic was whether or not a group suffered from factional splitting. The prevalence of factional splitting within terrorist and extremist groups was discussed frequently in prior research (Cronin, 2009a; Horgan, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008; McCauley, 2008; Oots, 1989; TTSRL, 2008). Not surprisingly, this variable significantly influenced the organizational death of domestic extremist groups. Groups that suffered from factional splitting were more likely to die than were groups who did not suffer from factional splitting. Groups that have this type of internal chaos would certainly be more at risk for organizational failure, than groups that are more stable (Hager et al., 2009). The second internal characteristic that significantly influenced the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups was group size. Previous studies have been inconclusive as to whether or not group size influences group longevity. This study supported Jones and Libicki (2008) who found that larger groups were less likely to end than were smaller groups. Jones and Libicki (2008) also wondered if a large group size was simply a result of surviving for a longer period of time, and did not actually have anything to do with actual group longevity. This study 95 does not answer that question, but it does provide evidence that a large group size makes a group less likely to die. It should be noted that losing group members and religious ideology are significant at the .1 level of significance. While these variables are not significant at the .05 level of significance, this model does suggest that they do play a somewhat important role in whether or not a group lives or dies. Table 4.1 External and Internal Characteristics of Organizational Death External Internal Variable B Sig. Exp(B) B Sig. Exp(B) Urban -0.341 0.494 0.711 Poverty Rate -1.233 0.742 0.291 Racial Heterogeneity -0.592 0.590 0.553 Government Ideology 0.009 0.319 1.009 Group Density 0.017 0.292 1.017 Police Intervention -0.500 0.178 0.607 Lost Public Support 0.640 0.595 1.897 Blue Statea 0.838 .045** 2.311 Red Statea Did not use Internet Factional Splitting Group Size 1.299 3.017 .001*** .000*** 3.665 20.436 Political Ideologyb b Religious Ideology Lost Group Members Constant Chi-Square Nagelkerke RSquared a -1.381 .077* 0.251 101.734 .000*** 1.259 2.270 .021** .000*** 3.523 9.677 -0.296 0.426 0.744 -0.781 -0.798 -1.503 .076* .060* .010** 0.458 0.450 0.222 37.898 .000*** 0.434 0.194 Purple State as reference group b Youth Cultural Ideology as reference group *p<.1,**p<.05,***p<.001 Combined significant external and internal factors. 96 The previously presented results showed the relationships between external characteristics and internal characteristics separately. However, groups probably are not influenced only by external characteristics or internal characteristics. Prior research has suggested that both external and internal factors could influence a group at the same time and contribute to that group’s demise (Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Schendel, Patton & Riggs, 1976; Shuchman & White, 1995; Slatter, 1984; Zimmerman, 1991). Because external and internal factors may impact the group simultaneously, all previous statistically significant internal and external factors were combined into this model. For the most part, the results from this model mirror those from the previous two models. Full results from this analysis are presented in Table 4.2. Use of the Internet, factional splitting, group size and being located in a red state all still significantly influenced the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups, while controlling for all other external and internal variables. Interestingly, being located in a blue state was no longer significant at the .05 level of significance. The group size variable moderated the relationship between being located in a blue state and organizational death. In the previous external only model, being located in a blue state was significant (.045). Once all the significant factors were combined in the full model, it was no longer as significant at the .05 level of significance (.072). The overall Chi-Square model (119.625) was significant at the .001 level of significance. The Nagelkerke R-Squared was .536. 97 Table 4.2 Significant Characteristics and Organizational Death 0.05 Variable B Sig. Exp(B) B 0.1 Sig. Exp(B) a Blue State 0.885 0.072* 2.422 0.826 0.060* 2.284 Red Statea Did not use the Internet Factional Splitting Group Size Lost Group Members Religious Ideology Constant 1.680 0.000*** 5.367 1.370 0.002** 3.934 3.292 1.628 2.078 0.000*** 0.016** 0.000*** 26.894 5.092 7.985 -3.491 .000*** 0.030 3.086 1.500 2.062 -1.136 -0.112 -3.328 0.000*** 0.020** 0.000*** 0.030** 0.795 0.000*** 21.893 4.480 7.858 0.321 0.894 0.036 116.461 .000*** Model Chi-Square Nagelkerke RSquared 119.625 0.000*** 0.536 0.520 a Purple State as Reference *p<.1, **p<.05,***p<.001 Violence. Because this study includes both violent and non-violent groups, determining whether or not group participation in violence influences whether or not a group lives or dies is important. Full model results are presented in Table 4.3. By participating in violence, groups would potentially be exposing themselves to an increased risk of police intervention, loss of public support and loss of group members to death and imprisonment. Further, prior research has noted that an increased organizational capacity increased the chances that a group participated in violence. Organizational capacity increases as groups become better organized as they age and grow larger (Chermak et al. 2013). First the relationship between group participation in violence and organizational death was examined with only the external factors. Group participation in violence was found to be negatively related to organizational death. Second, group participation in violence was examined with only the internal factors. In this case, it was found to not 98 significantly influence organizational death. The final model included all previous significant variables. Group participation in violence was found to negatively influence whether or not a group lives or dies. This finding is interesting, because the direction of the relationship was not what was expected. By participating in violence, groups potentially open themselves up to increased attention from law enforcement and public backlash, which could both have potentially negative effects on the group’s viability. However, prior research has found that older and larger groups were more likely to participate in violence (Chermak et al., 2013). It is possible, that because all of these groups persisted for at least three years, that groups that participated in violence had matured and grown to a point where they could withstand any negative consequences that might occur as a result of participating in violence, such as police intervention or negative public backlash. Blomberg et al. (2010) and Chermak et al. (2013) discussed the fact that some groups may commit only one violent attack, while others may commit multiple attacks. In an attempt to delve deeper into the effect group participation in violence has on organizational death, an additional violence variable was added-repeat violence. This variable captured groups that participated in more than one violent attack. Twenty-eight of the groups committed more than one violent attack. When the relationship between organizational death and this type of violence was examined, the results were similar to that of the regular violence variable. The commission of more than one violent attack was negatively related to organizational death. The fact that group violence is negatively related to group death for both single offenders and multiple offenders, is a very interesting finding that should be explored further in future research. 99 Table 4.3 Violence and Organizational Death > 3 Year Groups External Variable B Sig. Exp(B) Urban -0.525 0.312 0.592 Poverty Rate -1.348 0.725 0.260 Racial Heterogeneity -0.394 0.723 0.675 Government Ideology 0.009 0.350 1.009 Group Density 0.014 0.410 1.014 Police Intervention 0.218 0.651 1.243 Loss of Support 0.206 0.869 1.228 a Blue State 0.902 0.035** 2.464 a Red State 1.274 0.002** 3.575 Did not use Internet 3.053 0.000*** 21.170 Group Violent -1.322 0.013** 0.267 b Political Ideology Religious Ideologyb Lost Group Members Factional Splitting Group Size Constant -1.159 0.152 0.314 Chi-Square 107.253 0.000*** Nagelkerke RSquared 0.457 a Purple State as reference group b Youth Cultural Ideology as reference group *p<.1,**p<.05,***p<.001 B Internal Sig. Exp(B) -0.488 -0.365 -0.868 -0.495 1.281 2.223 -1.337 0.259 0.340 .054* 0.320 .020** .000*** .026** 39.285 .000*** 0.202 0.614 0.694 0.420 0.609 3.599 9.236 0.263 All Significant Factors (.05) B Sig. Exp(B) 0.934 1.353 3.119 -1.106 .033** .002** .000*** .017** 2.543 3.870 22.624 0.331 1.451 1.922 -3.198 .022** .001*** .000*** 4.267 6.838 0.041 117.147 .000*** 0.526 100 Results of External and Internal Factors for all Groups The second analysis for this dissertation explored what internal and external factors may contribute to a domestic far-right organization dying prior to reaching three years of age. This section will also be presented in four parts. The first part will present the results for the external factors. The second part will present the results for the internal factors. The third part will present the results for all the factors combined. Finally, the results for whether or not group violence influenced organizational death will be presented. Each part will present the results from that particular model, highlighting findings of interest. External factors. This model examined the relationship between the external factors and whether or not a group failed to survive past its second year of existence. The following external factors were included in this analysis: whether a group occurred in an urban environment; county poverty rate, county racial heterogeneity, government ideology, whether a group resided in a blue state, group density, loss of outside support, whether the group utilized the Internet and whether or not a group had a police intervention. For this analysis, because none of the groups that failed to survive for three years were located in a purple state, groups were only coded as to whether or not they were located in red or blue states. For those that were previously located in purple states, groups were recoded as to the results of the most recent presidential election during which they were alive. Two of these factors were significant: use of the Internet and police intervention. The overall Chi-Square model was significant (72.196) at the .001 level of significance. The 101 model also produced a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .2353. Full model results are presented in Table 4.4. A group’s use of the Internet significantly impacted whether or not they died prior to their third birthday. Groups that did not utilize the Internet were more likely to die prior to existing for three years than were those groups that utilized the Internet. This finding supports prior research that showed that the Internet allowed domestic far-right extremist groups to more effectively fundraise, recruit and share information than those groups that did not (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). Being able to raise money and recruit new members more effectively should help a group survive. The second significant variable was whether or not a group experienced a police intervention. While this variable was significant, it was not in the direction that was expected. Groups that experienced police intervention were more likely to survive past their second year of existence. At first glance, this result seems counterintuitive. One would hypothesize that police intervention would be a significant reason why a group would fail to survive for very long. However, in order for a group to come to the attention of the police, they must do something noteworthy that would attract the attention of law enforcement. If groups do not survive very long, they very well may not have had time to conduct enough events or activities that would attract the attention of law enforcement. Conversely, a group that has survived for three years or longer would potentially be more organized, have more members and be able to conduct more activities that would draw attention to themselves from law enforcement. This is not to say that law enforcement intervention cannot cause the death of a short-lived organization. These results 3 All models in this analysis were subjected to collinearity diagnostics. All VIF were less than 2.5. 102 simply suggest that something other than law enforcement intervention more commonly dealt a death blow to organizations prior to occurring for three years. This finding also contradicts Jones and Libicki (2008) that found that police intervention was effective at ending terrorist groups. However, it is important to note that Jones and Libicki (2008) focused on violent, transnational terrorist groups. Police strategies to combat a violent, transnational terrorist group may be quite different than a homicide investigation involving a few members of a domestic far-right extremist group. This distinction between the types of groups must be taken into consideration when interpreting this result. None of the other external factors were found to significantly impact whether or not groups survive to their third birthday. Internal factors. The second model tested internal factors to determine their relationship to whether or not a group dissolves prior to surviving for three years. The following variables were included in this model: factional splitting, group ideology, and whether the group lost members. Group size was not able to be tested because only one group that survived less than three years reached 200 members. The overall Chi-Square model (28.421) was significant at the .001 level of significance. The model also provided a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .103. The full results from this analysis are included in Table 4.4. The first variable that was significant was group ideology. Groups that adhered to a political or religious group ideology were significantly less likely to die prior to surviving three years when compared to groups that adhered to a youth cultural group ideology. While Berlet and Vysotsky (2006) identified several subcultures within the youth cultural ideology, a major component of groups that adhere to this type of ideology are skinhead groups. Skinheads are 103 notoriously volatile and therefore are often short-lived (Moore, 1993). These results support prior literature that these types of groups generally do not persist for extended periods of time (Moore, 1993). This finding also supports previous research that suggested that those groups that adhered to a religious ideology may be more likely to persist because spiritually based motivations are not easily abandoned (Rapoport, 1984; Jones & Libicki, 2008). While this finding does support this notion, it does not suggest that religious groups would be the longest lived organizations. This finding only suggests that religious and political groups have a lower chance of dying prior to three years than do groups that adhere to a youth cultural ideology. The other variable that significantly impacted whether or not a group perished prior to its third birthday was if they lost group members to amnesty, death, imprisonment or disenchantment. However, this variable was negatively related to a group dying prior to existing for three years. This result contradicts research that suggested that losing members in this fashion was detrimental to an organization’s survival (Cronin, 2009a; Freilich et al., 2009; Hewitt, 2003; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; TTSRL, 2008). However, it is important to note that previous studies generally included only older, larger groups, and did not include groups that existed for only a short time. Similar to the discussion on police intervention in the previous section, the most plausible explanation for this is that in general groups simply did not survive long enough to have members die, be imprisoned or become disenchanted with the group or movement. Because of this, the fact that this variable was negatively related to a group dying in two years or less should be interpreted with some caution. Significant factors. 104 As previously discussed, both external and internal factors could contribute to a group’s demise at the same time ((Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Schendel et. al, 1976; Shuchman & White, 1995; Slatter, 1984; Zimmerman, 1991). Because external and internal factors may impact the group simultaneously, all previous statistically significant internal and external factors were combined into this model. Full model results are presented in Table 4.4. The overall Chi-Square model (91.891) was significant at the .001 level of significance. The model also provided a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .315. All of the variables that were statistically significant in the prior models remained significant in this model, except for Lost Group Members. 105 Table 4.4 External, Internal and Significant Factors and Dying Prior to Three Years External Sig. 0.845 0.917 0.923 0.312 0.725 .002** 0.774 Variable Urban Poverty Rate Racial Heterogeneity Government Ideology Group Density Police Intervention Lost Public Support B 0.073 -0.291 -0.080 0.006 -0.004 -0.925 -0.225 Blue Statea Did not use Internet Factional Splitting -0.253 0.326 1.942 .000*** Exp(B) 1.076 0.747 0.923 1.006 0.996 0.397 0.798 B Internalc Sig. Exp(B) 0.777 6.976 -0.486 b 0.290 B All Significant Sig. Exp(B) -1.577 .001*** 0.207 1.899 .000*** 6.676 0.615 Political Ideology -1.015 .000*** 0.362 -0.767 .016** 0.464 Religious Ideologyb Lost Group Members Constant -1.841 -1.495 .000*** -1.132 .003** 0.279 0.196 0.224 0.322 1.322 -1.351 0.161 -0.715 .003** 0.775 0.305 0.259 1.714 0.489 Chi-Square Nagelkerke R-Squared 72.196 .000*** 0.235 91.891 0.315 .000*** a .002** 0.159 28.421 .000*** 0.103 Only blue and red states included-no groups existed in purple states b Youth Cultural Ideology as reference group c Group Size not included due to a lack of variation **p<.05, ***p<.001 106 Group Violence. This study includes both violent and non-violent groups that existed for varying lengths of time. Even though violence was found to be a significant predictor of group death for groups that persisted for longer than three years, it was unknown whether or not a group’s participation in violence influenced whether or not the group died prior to existing for three years. This model tested whether or not a group’s participation in violence influenced whether or not they died prior to three years of age. The first model examined group violence with the external factors. The second model examined group violence with internal factors, and the final model examined group violence with all previously significant variables. Full results are presented in Table 4.5. In the first model, group participation in violence was not significant. The only variable that was significant was whether or not a group utilized the Internet. In the second model, group participation in violence was negatively related to dying prior to three years. Additionally, both political and religious ideologies were negatively related to dying prior to three years, when youth cultural ideology was the reference category. The final model produced an overall ChiSquare of (70.387), which was significant at the .001 level of significance and produced a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .231. Similar to the groups that persisted for longer than three years, a group’s participation in violence did significantly influence whether or not a group died prior to three years of age. For these groups, it was not surprising that group participation in violence was negatively related to dying prior to existing for three years. This finding appears to be driven by the larger, older groups with an increased organizational capacity that survived more than three years. As stated previously, larger, older groups may be more able to conduct violent attacks (Chermak et al., 2013). This is not to say that young groups cannot participate in violent attacks, but rather, older, larger groups are better equipped to carry out such attacks. 107 Table 4.5 Violence and Organizational Death All Groups Variable External Sig. 0.925 0.921 0.912 0.211 0.958 0.142 0.765 Urban Poverty Rate Racial Heterogeneity Government Ideology Group Density Police Intervention Loss of Support B -0.036 -0.277 -0.094 0.008 -0.001 -0.548 -0.232 Blue Statea Did not use Internet Group Violent -0.321 0.225 1.949 .000*** -0.328 0.447 Exp(B) 0.965 0.758 0.910 1.008 0.999 0.578 0.793 0.726 7.022 0.720 B Internalc Sig. Exp(B) B All Significant Sig. Exp(B) -1.042 .013** 0.353 1.706 -1.000 Political Ideology -1.136 .000*** 0.321 -0.564 .037** 0.569 Religious Ideologyb Factional Splitting Lost Group Members Constant -1.712 -0.333 -0.380 0.375 .000*** 0.478 0.412 0.106 0.181 0.717 0.684 1.454 -1.123 .006** 0.325 -1.308 .000*** 0.270 34.314 0.128 .000*** 70.387 0.231 .000*** b -1.953 .001*** Chi-Square 66.434 .000*** Nagelkerke R-Squared 0.227 a 0.142 Only blue and red states included in this analysis. No < 3 yr groups existed in a purple state. b Youth Cultural Ideology reference category c Group Size not included due to lack of variation in < 3yr groups **p<.05,***p<.001 108 .000*** .004** 5.505 0.368 Results of External and Internal Factors on Specific Groups The first two analyses in this dissertation were important because to this point, no one had examined which factors may influence whether groups live or die. Therefore, it was important to include as many different variables as possible in those models to begin to determine empirically what does and does not influence the death of domestic far-right extremist groups. However, the American far-right is not a homogenous movement, where all groups adhere to the same exact ideology and participate in the same exact activities. Because of this variation, analyzing how different types of groups are influenced by these external and internal factors is important to determine whether certain factors may more readily cause the organizational death of certain types of groups. This next analysis tested how external and internal factors may influence the organizational death for specific types of far-right extremist groups. Violent groups. Even though group participation in violence was not found to significantly influence whether a group died, groups that participate in violence may be impacted by different external and internal factors than those that do not participate in violence. The first model examined the relationship between all external and internal factors and group death for violent groups that persisted for longer than three years. Full model results are presented in Table 4.6. The overall Chi-Square (40.451) was significant at the .001 level of significance. This model produced a Nagelkerke R-squared of .698. Three variables were found to significantly influence the organizational death of violent groups that persisted for more than three years. Two of the variables found to be significant were 109 consistent with the general model for groups that persisted for more than three years. Being located in a red state and use of the Internet both influenced whether or not violent groups died. However, the third variable that was found to significantly influence the organizational death of violent groups was police intervention. This variable was not found to be significant in the general model. Violent groups that experienced police intervention were more likely to die than violent groups that did not have police intervention. This finding was not surprising. The chances that a group that commits violence would encounter police intervention should be fairly high. Similar analyses were conducted examining non-violent groups that persisted for more than three years. Results are presented in Table 4.6. The overall Chi-Square (97.017) was significant at the .001 level, and the Nagelkerke R-Squared was .567. Being located in a red state, group size, not using the Internet and factional splitting were all found to significantly influence the organizational death of non-violent groups. These findings were consistent with the general analysis of groups that persisted for longer than three years. Interestingly, group size was significant for the general model and for non-violent groups, but not for violent groups. Violent and non-violent groups were also examined for the full sample of groups. Not using the Internet was the only significant factor in the full sample of violent groups, while not using the Internet and factional splitting were both found to be significant for the full sample of non-violent groups. These findings were consistent with the general model that examined the full sample of groups. 110 Table 4.6 External and Internal Factors for Violent and Non-Violent Groups Violent Variables B S.E Sig. Exp(B) B Urban -1.213 2.530 0.632 0.297 -0.954 Poverty Rate -5.709 21.194 0.788 0.003 -1.300 Racial Heterogeneity 0.240 4.185 0.954 1.271 0.659 Government Ideology 0.103 0.059 0.082* 1.108 0.012 Group Density 0.065 0.058 0.262 1.067 0.009 Police Intervention 6.530 2.961 0.027** 685.646 0.332 Non-Violent S.E. Sig. 0.678 0.159 4.976 0.794 1.489 0.658 0.013 0.338 0.021 0.684 0.703 0.637 Blue Statea 1.174 1.256 0.350 3.236 0.635 0.592 Red State Did not use Internet Factional Splitting Group Size 6.926 3.037 2.484 1.112 2.803 1.470 2.039 1.208 0.013** 0.039** 0.223 0.357 1018.091 20.834 11.993 3.040 1.332 3.488 2.137 2.871 0.550 0.015** 0.598 0.000*** 0.997 0.032** 0.913 0.002** 3.787 32.734 8.473 17.655 Political Ideologyb 2.810 1.741 0.107 16.610 0.230 0.662 0.728 1.259 3.431 1.155 0.062* 0.414 596.941 0.389 -0.200 0.751 -1.075 1.378 0.790 0.435 0.819 0.341 Constant 6.392 -0.944 16.546 7.755 0.033** 0.000 -4.235 1.436 0.003** 0.014 Model Chi-Square Nagelkerke R-Squared 40.541 0.698 97.017 0.567 0.000*** a b Religious Ideology Lost Group Members a 0.000*** Purple State reference group b Youth Cultural Ideology as reference group *p<.1, **p<.05, **p<.001 111 0.284 Exp(B) 0.385 0.272 1.933 1.012 1.009 1.394 1.887 Group ideology. One of the most obvious ways that groups may vary from each other is in their specific group ideology. Various typological systems have been employed to categorize the domestic farright (See Baysinger, 2005; Kaplan, 1995; SPLC, 2012 for examples). As discussed earlier, the typology utilized for this dissertation is the one set forth by Berlet and Vysotsky (2006) that categorizes groups as political, religious or youth-cultural. Each of these groups has specific ideological traits and behaviors that are specific to their particular type of group ideology. Since these groups vary in their specific far-right beliefs and activities, it is possible that they may be differentially influenced by the external and internal factors that have been examined in this dissertation relative to organizational death. In this model, each type of ideology was examined to determine whether differences existed between the types relative to the correlates of organizational death. First the groups that persisted for more than three years were examined, and then all the groups were tested. Three year results. Youth cultural groups produced interesting results. Full model results are presented in Table 4.7. The overall Chi-Square (29.806) was significant (.002) and produced a Nagelkerke RSquared of .544. Two factors were found to be significant. The first was not using the Internet. This finding was the same as in all previous models. Interestingly, the county poverty rate was found to negatively influence the organizational death of youth cultural groups that persisted for more than three years, which means that as poverty rates increase, organizational death would decrease. This is consistent with previous research that suggested that increased poverty rates would increase group mobilization rates (Florida, 2012; Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). Further, this 112 finding may be specific to youth cultural groups due to the prevalence of skinhead groups within this ideology. Skinhead groups commonly consist of disaffected youths, who are rebelling against what is perceived to be an unfair society (Moore, 1993). If youths live in areas of higher poverty, they may more readily not only join, but remain in skinhead type groups. Political and religious groups were also examined. Results are presented in Table 4.7. Being located in a red state, group size and not using the Internet were all found to significantly influence the organizational death of political groups, while only not using the Internet was found to influence the organizational death of religious groups. The results from these models were consistent with the general findings from earlier models. 113 Table 4.7 All Factors by Ideology >3 Year Groups Youth Cultural Variable B Sig. Exp(B) Urban -1.333 0.498 0.264 Poverty Rate 21.957 .043** 0.000 Racial Heterogeneity -0.231 0.933 0.793 Government Ideology -0.005 0.840 0.995 Group Density 0.014 0.685 1.015 Police Intervention -1.739 0.121 0.176 a Blue State 1.370 0.207 3.937 a Red State 2.042 .084* 7.706 b Loss of Support Did not use Internet 3.751 .001*** 42.565 Factional Splitting 1.927 0.201 6.871 Lost Group Membersc 0.633 0.533 1.884 d Group Size Constant 1.495 0.555 4.461 B 0.633 33.063 Religious Sig. Exp(B) 0.676 1.883 0.145 2.29E+14 B -0.870 -6.036 Political Sig. 0.327 0.304 Exp(B) 0.419 0.002 -7.967 .068* 0.000 1.339 0.485 3.815 -0.006 0.096 0.864 1.547 1.882 -0.265 3.198 3.185 0.877 0.015 0.599 0.312 0.231 0.939 .015** 0.209 0.994 1.101 2.372 4.699 6.564 0.767 24.479 24.156 0.018 0.021 0.706 0.562 1.431 -2.067 4.064 0.740 0.265 0.468 0.359 0.440 .030** 0.366 .000*** 0.484 1.018 1.021 2.025 1.753 4.184 0.127 58.209 2.095 1.548 0.001 -1.761 2.344 -3.818 0.171 .004** .006** 0.172 10.418 0.022 77.124 0.000*** 0.437 -6.647 0.798 .067* Model Chi-Square 29.806 0.002** 29.674 .003** Nagelkerke RSquared 0.544 0.625 a Purple State as reference group b Not included in model due to lack of variation in youth cultural groups c Not included in model due to lack of variation in religious groups d Not included in model due to lack of variation in youth cultural groups *p<.1, **p<.05, ***p<.001 114 0.604 All groups. The factors that influence organizational death were also examined for each group ideology for the entire sample of groups. Youth cultural groups again produced results of interest. The overall Chi-Square (42.164) was significant at .001 and produced a Nagelkerke RSquared of .494. Full model results are presented in Table 4.8. As was expected, not using the Internet was again significant. Police intervention was also significant for this ideological set of groups. Police intervention was negatively related to group death, meaning that groups that had police intervention were less likely to die than those that did not have police intervention. This is an interesting finding because police intervention is a strategy employed frequently to combat terrorist and extremist groups (Jones & Libicki, 2008). In this case, it seems to work in the opposite direction and could be having a galvanizing effect on these groups. A common component of the far-right ideology is anti-government and anti-police sentiments (Suttmoeller, Gruenewald, Chermak & Freilich, 2013). These groups may be suffering from police intervention, but instead of causing them to disband, it appears to be solidifying their resolve against a perceived enemy. An examination of religious groups also produced some interesting results. The overall Chi-Square (34.970) was significant at the .001 and produced a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .571. The full model results are presented in Table 4.8. In addition to not using the Internet being significant, the county level measure of racial heterogeneity was also significant for religious groups. Racial heterogeneity was negatively related to group death for the full sample of religious groups, which means that as diversity within the county increases, group death decreases. This supports McVeigh (2004) who found that as white supremacists come in contact with more people of other races, feelings of unpleasantness or animosity may increase. These 115 increased feelings of unpleasantness and animosity could increase group mobilization and recruitment, which in turn would reduce the chances of a group dying. Groups that adhered to a political ideology were also examined. This model produced a Chi-Square (37.156) that was significant at the .001, and a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .258. Only group size and not using the Internet were found to significantly influence their organizational death. 116 Table 4.8 All Factors by Ideology for All Groupsc Variables Urban Poverty Rate Racial Heterogeneity Government Ideology Group Density Police Intervention Blue Statea Did not use Internet Factional Splitting Lost Group Members Constant Model Chi-Square Nagelkerke RSquared a Youth Cultural B Sig. Exp(B) -0.564 0.701 0.569 -9.567 0.253 0.000 0.856 0.733 2.354 0.007 -0.027 -2.510 -1.155 3.429 1.300 0.729 0.335 .011** 0.209 .000*** 0.317 1.007 0.974 0.081 0.315 30.858 3.668 0.312 2.642 0.715 0.158 1.366 14.041 42.164 .000*** 0.494 B 0.690 21.475 -6.217 Religiousb Sig. 0.549 0.132 .047** Exp(B) 1.993 2.120 0.002 -0.009 0.075 0.736 -0.350 4.142 0.658 .077* 0.482 0.706 .000*** 0.991 1.078 2.089 0.705 62.957 -3.166 0.168 34.970 .000*** 0.571 Exp(B) 0.560 0.028 0.423 0.002 0.025 -0.942 -0.218 2.041 0.150 0.865 0.201 0.105 0.568 .000*** 0.812 1.002 1.026 0.390 0.804 7.698 1.162 0.776 -1.065 0.397 0.228 2.173 0.345 37.156 .000*** 0.258 Only blue and red states are included-no less than three year groups were located in purple states b c 0.042 B -0.579 -3.586 -0.860 Political Sig. 0.288 0.376 0.500 Only external variables are included due to a lack of variation in the internal variables Group size and loss of support were not included due to lack of variation in the less than three year groups 117 These models have provided an interesting look into which factors may influence the organizational death of domestic far-right groups. However, leadership, which may be the most important factor (Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Yukl, 2002), has not been examined. Chapter five presents the findings from the analyses that examined how different leadership characteristics impact group death. 118 Chapter 5 The purpose of this chapter is to address the third research question regarding the influence of organizational and individual leadership on the organizational death of domestic farright extremist groups. Even though leadership could be considered an “internal” factor, prior literature has suggested that leadership may be the single most important factor in whether or not a group lives or dies (Altman, 1983; Argenti, 1976; Fredenberger et al., 1997; Kharbanda & Stallworthy, 1985; Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Shuchman & White, 1995). Because of its suggested importance, an increased focus was placed on leadership, and this dissertation examines it both from an organizational perspective and also from an individual perspective. The first section of this chapter will present the results from the analyses that examined the correlation between organizational leadership characteristics and organizational death for groups that persisted for longer than three years. Due to a lack of information concerning organizational leadership characteristics for those groups that died prior to three years, only those groups that persisted for longer than three years are included in this analysis. Logistic regression was used to determine how organizational leadership structure, whether the leader was removed, how the leader was removed and whether the group was able to successfully transfer leadership influenced organizational death. The second section will present the results of how individual leadership characteristics influence group death. Logistic regression will also be used to examine this relationship.4 4 All models in this analysis were subjected to collinearity diagnostics. All VIF were less than 2. 119 Organizational Leadership Characteristics The first model examined how organizational leadership structures and if the leader was removed significantly influenced whether or not a group died. Five types of organizational leadership structures were initially identified as possible structures for groups included in this dissertation. Only four of the structures (bureaucratic structure with a single leader, bureaucratic structure with a governing board, market/leaderless structure and all channel) were actually identified during the coding process. The hub and spoke style was not identified. The remaining leadership structures were dummy coded for this analysis. The overall Chi-Square (17.843) was significant at the .001 level. This model produced a Nagelkerke R-Squared of .100. Model results are presented in Table 5.1. Two of the leadership structures were found to significantly influence whether or not groups died. Groups who utilized a bureaucratic structure with a governing board were significantly less likely to die than were those groups that had a bureaucratic structure with a single leader. Additionally, groups that used a market or leaderless structure were significantly more likely to die than were groups that had a bureaucratic structure with a single leader. The finding regarding groups with a governing board supports prior organizational research that found that organizations headed by an executive board, rather than a single leader were less prone to failure (Probst & Raisch, 2005). Even though the concept of leaderless resistance has been championed by far-right stalwarts such as Tom Metzger and Louis Beam (ADL, 2002; Beam, 1992), only skinhead groups commonly utilize this structure. These groups are smaller, volatile and are generally short-lived (Moore, 1993). While this type of analysis had not been done before, the finding that groups that utilized a market/leaderless structure were more likely to die supports this earlier research on skinhead groups. 120 Whether or not the group leader was removed was also found to significantly influence if a group died. Prior research has suggested that the loss of a terrorist group leader would cause a group to die (Cronin, 2006, 2009; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Nepstad & Bob, 2006; TTSRL, 2008), and these results support this research. Table 5.1 Organizational Leadership and Organizational Death (N=230) Variable Beta Standard Error Significance Exp(B) Leader was Removed .693 .293 .018** 1.999 Governing Board Structurea -1.084 .476 .023** .338 Market/Leaderless Structurea 1.126 .540 .037** 3.083 All Channel Structurea -.955 .893 .285 .385 Constant -.105 .181 .564 .901 Chi-Square 17.843 Nagelkerke R-Squared .001*** .100 a Bureaucratic structure with single leader reference category **p<.05,***p<.001 How the Leader was Removed The next model used logistic regression to test the relationship between how a leader was removed (N=79) and organizational death. Four categories of leadership removal were included in this analysis: leader was killed or violently incapacitated, leader was arrested, leader died of natural causes, and leader left voluntarily. These categories were then dummy coded for the analysis. The leader was killed or incapacitated category was used as a reference, and none of the categories were found to be significant. Significant debate has occurred within the larger 121 terrorism literature about the most effective way to remove a leader and cause the group to die (Byman, 2006; Cronin, 2006, 2009; Hudson, 1999; Jordan, 2009; Langdon et al., 2004). Most of this earlier work only focused on violent, terrorist groups. Based on the results of this study, for the domestic far-right, it appears that the manner with which a leader is removed is not important. It only matters that the leader was removed. Leadership Transition The final model tested what impact a group’s ability to transition leadership had on whether or not a group died. Results are presented in Table 5.2. The ability of a group to transition leadership was identified in prior research as a possible reason for a terrorist organization’s demise (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). This model used logistic regression to examine this relationship. The overall Chi-Square (33.303) was significant at the .001 level. The Nagelkerke R-Squared was .468. Groups in this study that failed to successfully transition leadership were more likely to die than were groups that did manage to successfully transition leadership. This supports prior research on terrorist groups that found that groups that were unable to successfully transition leadership were more likely to end (Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008). 122 Table 5.2 Leadership Transition and Organizational Death (N=79) Variable B Standard Error Significance Exp(B) Did not Transition 3.216 Chi-Square 33.303 Nagelkerke R-Squared .689 .000*** 24.923 .000*** .468 ***p<.001 Individual Leadership Characteristics The next model examined individual leaders to determine whether individual leadership styles influenced whether a group died. A seven point scale (See Appendix XII) was created based on Mumford’s (2006) CIP model and Ligon et.al’s (2013) summary chart (See Appendix XI ). Each individual leader (N=101) was coded for each leadership type. Logistic regression was used to test the relationship between the individual leadership scores and organizational death. The results for this analysis were not significant. None of the leadership styles significantly influenced whether the group died5. Additionally, groups were again separated by violence and group ideology. Individual leadership styles were not significant in any of the models. One reason for this finding could be my sample and data collection methodology. One hundred seventy leaders were originally identified from the sample of 275 groups. Of those 170, enough information was found to allow for a leadership style determination for 101 leaders. This 5 Ten leaders included in this analysis led more than one group. Since it is possible for a leader to modify their style over time, all leaders were included in this analysis. However, to ensure that the duplicate leaders were not skewing the results due to them being in the database more than one time, duplicate entries were randomly eliminated, so that each leader was only included once. The analysis was rerun, and the same results were achieved. None of the styles significantly influenced organizational death. Leaders were also coded as dichotomous variables: charismatic, ideological or pragmatic as described by Mumford (2006). Six leaders were not able to be categorized. The analysis was conducted and the results were not significant. 123 may have led to a biased sample of leaders. The open source data collection methodology focused on speeches, interviews, writings and other forms of communication by the leader that was available. It is possible that there is something distinct about the type of leaders that make public speeches, publish ideological writings, or participate in interviews. Because of the focus on these forms of communication, the leadership styles of some far-right leaders were not able to be identified, which may have led to the similarity in styles exhibited by the leaders included in this study. Even though the focus of this study was organizational death, and individual leadership styles were not found to significantly influence a group’s death, it may be possible that individual leadership styles influence other aspects of group behavior, which may then influence whether a group lives or dies. To further explore this possible indirect impact of individual leadership styles on group death, recruitment strategies and methods of information dissemination were examined. Generalized structural equation model (SEM) methods were utilized to test these indirect relationships. Several indirect relationships were found that significantly influenced domestic far-right extremist group death. The model is presented in Figure 5.1. Ideological leadership was positively related to church recruitment, which was negatively related to group death. Pragmatic leadership was positively related to Internet recruitment and total information dissemination, which were both negatively related to group death. Two paths were not significant. Charismatic leadership was positively related to newsletter recruitment, but newsletter recruitment was not related to group death. Also, pragmatic leadership was not related to total recruitment, and total recruitment was not related to group death. 124 It is interesting that individual leadership styles influence different recruitment strategies, which then influence whether a group lives or dies. It was not surprising that Internet recruitment was negatively related to group death, but was somewhat surprising that it was only significant for pragmatic leadership. It may be that since pragmatic leaders approach situations rationally and from a cost/benefit perspective (Mumford, 2006); they recognize the potential benefits of utilizing the Internet more so than do charismatic or ideological leaders. It also was not surprising that groups led by leaders who are more ideological that recruit in church were less likely to die. Those who are involved in religious groups may exhibit higher levels of commitment due to their deeply held religious beliefs (Berlet & Vystosky, 2006). Finally, it was also interesting that the types of information dissemination did not seem to matter, but only the total number of strategies utilized by the group. Those leaders higher in pragmatism would probably recognize that it is important to utilize as many different methods as possible to disseminate information, rather than simply rely on a few methods. 125 Figure 5.1 Indirect Pathways between Individual Leadership Styles and Group Death Total Information Dissemination .200** Pragmatic Leadership .140 Total Recruitment -.317** .295** -.089 Internet Recruitment Charismatic Leadership Ideological Leadership .202* .406* -1.29*** Newsletter Recruitment -.072 Recruits at Church Group Death -.1.13* *p<.1, **p<.05, ***p<.001 Because of the large number of variables included in this analysis, three preliminary structural equation models were examined to determine possible significant paths to be included in the final model. The first preliminary model examined the paths between individual leadership styles and group death, through recruitment strategies. Twelve different dichotomous recruitment strategies were included in the model and three were found to be significant. Charismatic leadership was found to be positively related to whether a group utilized a newsletter for recruitment, which was negatively related to group death. Ideological leadership was positively related to recruiting in church, which was negatively related to group death. Finally, pragmatic 126 leadership was positively related to utilizing the Internet for recruitment, which was negatively related to group death. The second preliminary model examined the paths between individual leadership styles and group death, through information dissemination strategies. Twelve different dichotomous information dissemination strategies were included in this model. None of the paths were found to be significant. The final preliminary model examined the paths between individual leadership styles and group death through the total number of recruitment strategies and the total number of information dissemination strategies. These two variables were additive scales created by adding the number of recruitment or information dissemination strategies utilized by each group. Pragmatic leadership was positively related to both total recruitment and total information dissemination, which were both negatively related to group death. In addition to the findings concerning other group behaviors, other important information was gained as a result of this analysis. Even though ideological leaders were more prevalent than were charismatic or pragmatic leaders, all three types of leadership styles identified by Mumford (2006), were found to be present within the far-right movement. This is the first time these three types of leaders have been identified in the American far-right. This study also found that most of the leaders included in this study exhibited characteristics from more than one leadership style. This suggests that leaders on the far-right are not simply charismatic, ideological or pragmatic, but can utilize characteristics from other leadership styles to enhance their main leadership style. Analysis by Group Ideology 127 As discussed earlier, all domestic far-right groups are not the same. One way that they vary is by their ideology (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). Even though all adhere to a far-right ideology, within that ideology differences may exist between political, religious and youth cultural groups, including their leadership characteristics. To examine these possible differences, an analysis was done that separated each ideological type to test the relationship between the organizational and individual leadership variables and organizational death. For the most part, the results for each ideological group mirrored the results for the larger sample of groups. However, one variable in particular produced interesting results. The variable that captured if a group leader was removed was significant for the larger sample of groups. It was also found to be significant for religious groups, but it was not found to be significant for groups that adhered to a political or youth cultural ideology. This finding suggests that the individual leader may be more important for religious groups, than for groups of other ideologies. It is possible that religious group leaders may not be as easily replaced as leaders of other groups. Religious group members have deep spiritual beliefs, and their leaders are seen as their spiritual guides (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006). If the leader is removed, then there is no one to lead the group members on their spiritual quest. Violent and Non-Violent Groups Groups were also examined based on whether or not they committed violence. The most interesting finding from this analysis was that a leader being removed was significant for nonviolent groups, but not for violent groups. It is unknown why a leader being removed is more likely to cause a non-violent group to die, than a violent group. One possible explanation is that violent groups may be more likely to use a deposed leader as an ideological rallying point, regardless of whether he was killed or arrested, as an example of government oppression against 128 the group, which serves to solidify the group. Another possibility is that if the leader is arrested, they are able to remain in contact with the group, which leads to the maintenance of the group (Cronin, 2006; Langdon, et al., 2004; Jordan, 2009). Regardless of the reason why these violent groups are not similarly affected by the loss of a leader as the non-violent groups, this finding challenges commonly held assumptions about violent terrorist groups (see Cronin, 2006, 2009; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Nepstad & Bob, 2006; TTSRL, 2008) that the removal of the leader of the group is related to its death. All Significant Variables and Organizational Death The final part of this analysis will test the relationship of all the external, internal and leadership variables and organizational death. Results are presented in Table 5.3. Because external and internal (including leadership) variables may impact a group simultaneously (Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Schendel et al., 1976; Shuchman & White, 1995; Slatter, 1984; Zimmerman, 1991), it is important to test all the significant variables in one final model. All of the variables remained significant except for the organizational leadership structures. When using bureaucratic structure with a single leader as the reference category, neither bureaucratic structure with a governing board nor the market/leaderless structure were significant. This suggests that some of these other variables are more important in whether a group lives or dies than how leadership is structured within an organization. Even though leadership structure was not significant, whether or not a leader is removed was significant, so leadership does still play a role in whether or not a group dies. The Chi-Square (101.845) was significant at the .001 level. The Nagelkerke R-Squared was .5106. 6 All variables in this model were subjected to collinearity diagnostics. All VIF’s were less than 1.5. 129 Table 5.3 All Significant Variables and Organizational Death (N=211) Variable B Standard Error Significance Exp(B) Blue Statea .928 .469 .048** 2.529 Red Statea 1.585 .455 .000*** 4.880 Did not use Internet 2.922 .464 .000*** 18.580 Factional Splitting 1.240 .625 .047** 3.457 Group Size 1.903 .568 .001*** 6.704 Governing Boardb -.487 .582 .403 .614 Market/Leaderlessb -.280 .785 .721 .756 Leader Removed .811 .391 .038** 2.250 -3.661 .650 .000*** .026 Constant Chi-Square Nagelkerke R-Squared 101.845 .000*** .510 a Purple state reference category Bureaucratic structure with single leader reference category **p<.05, ***p<.001 b The last two chapters have examined a variety of factors that were hypothesized to influence the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. The findings from these analyses may have important implications for policy makers and scholars. These implications will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. 130 Chapter 6 This final chapter accomplishes a number of objectives. First, it provides an overview of the components of this dissertation and its major findings. Second, this chapter will discuss the academic, law enforcement and policy implications of this project. Third, the research limitations of this project are discussed. Finally, future research plans that extend the current study and further advance knowledge about the correlates of organizational death for domestic extremist groups are discussed. A Review of the Far-Right Group Organizational Death Project and Major Findings This study is the first to examine the causes of organizational death for domestic far-right extremist groups. This study was exploratory because prior to this study, research consisted mostly of anecdotal case studies that focused on violent, international terrorist groups and the cessation of violence, rather than organizational death. Further, these studies relied heavily on the terrorism literature to identify correlates of organizational death, rather than employ an interdisciplinary approach utilizing organizational literature. This study utilized an interdisciplinary approach to present a more thorough examination of the topic of organizational death than has been previously been undertaken, and contributes substantially to the knowledge base of the organizational death of terrorist/extremist groups. Because of the exploratory nature of this study, a large number of models were run, and in this section, I will attempt to make sense of the results and identify which variables really seem to matter in the organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Several variables were found to be related to organizational death, but two of the more important variables were: not using the Internet and being located in a red or blue state. These variables 131 were found to be important in a number of models. Group participation in violence also was important more so because of how it impacted group death, rather than simply because it had an impact. Due to the large number of models included in this study, some nuance existed between models and other variables were found to influence group death, but some variables were consistently significant and clearly were more important than others. Not using the Internet seems to be the most important variable that influences whether a group lives or dies. This variable was significant in every model. It makes sense that this would be an important variable because of the benefits for recruitment, information sharing and networking that the Internet provides for a group (Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006). Not using the Internet would certainly place groups at a disadvantage to those that do use the Internet. This variable may continue to increase in importance as younger, more Internet savvy far-right activists take over existing groups or start their own groups. However, the importance of simply utilizing the Internet may decrease in importance. Social networking sites are very popular with the younger generation and will probably continue to increase in popularity. These sites may not only increase the known benefits of Internet usage, but may also provide benefits that are currently not known or recognized. How groups are utilizing the Internet should certainly be a focus area for future research. Being located in a red or blue state was also an important variable in predicting the organizational death of domestic far-right groups. Groups located in these states were more likely to die than were those located in purple states. Being located in a red state seemed to be even more important than being located in a blue state, even though both were significant in multiple models. This finding is interesting because red states are those that supported Republican candidates for President, are more conservative and are thought to be more 132 supportive of far-right groups and their ideology. Blue states are generally considered to be more liberal and more hostile to far-right groups (Gilliard-Matthews, 2011). Groups in both of these states were more likely to die than were groups located in states that varied in their Presidential support. It is unknown why the states that do not vary politically are more hostile to far-right groups than are those who vary politically. It is possible that in those states that vary politically, citizens are more tolerant of differing political views. However, this does not explain why red states are more hostile to far-right groups. Since this finding challenges commonly held assumptions about far-right support in more conservative states, this certainly should be explored further in future research. Group participation in violence was also an important variable in predicting organizational death for domestic far-right groups. This variable was important more for how it influenced group death, rather than for the simple fact that it influenced group death. Participation in violence was found to be negatively related to group death. Group participation in violence would be thought to attract attention from law enforcement and possibly result in a loss of public support for the group, which both could potentially impact a group’s viability. However, groups that participate in violence are less likely to die than are those that do not participate in violence. This finding is more easily explained for those groups that died prior to existing for three years. It is possible that these groups simply did not survive long enough to develop the capacity to commit a violent act (Chermak et al., 2013). However, it is less clear why groups that survived for more than three years and participated in violence were less likely to die than those who did not participate in violence. Perhaps, groups that were older and larger were more able to absorb any negative consequences that may result from participation in violence. Another possibility is that group members in violent groups are different than those 133 that are in non-violent groups. It is possible that there is a higher level of commitment and cohesion within these groups that also influences their ability to survive. This should be explored in further research. In order to further examine the ability of large groups to survive in spite of their use of violence, a future study that focuses on groups of similar sizes, such as a study that focuses on large groups and their organizational characteristics may help to further explain this finding. Leadership received an increased focus in this study because it was identified as potentially the most important variable in determining group death ((Altman, 1983; Argenti, 1976; Fredenberger, Lipp & Watson, 1997; Kharbanda & Stallworthy, 1985; Miller, 1977; Murphy & Meyer, 2008; Schuchman & White, 1995), and a leaders main goal should be the proliferation of the group (Crenshaw, 1988). However, of the leadership variables included in this study, only whether or not a leader was removed was of much importance. The fact that overall leadership did not seem to matter much in determining whether a group lived or died was somewhat surprising and may even be shocking to some. However, the relationship between leadership and organizational death may be more complicated than what was tested in this study. It is possible that individual leadership may still matter, but not as a direct influence on whether or not a group dies. They may indirectly influence whether a group lives or dies through the different strategies that different types of leaders may utilize during their tenure. Implications This study has implications for the academic, law enforcement and policy communities. First, this study was the first to examine correlates of organizational death for domestic far-right groups. It provided evidence in some cases to support previously identified anecdotal reasons for 134 terrorist or extremist group death, but also provided evidence that some commonly believed reasons for organizational death may not be as important as once thought. Second, this study characterized extremist leaders in a way that had not been previously done. By doing so, it shed light, not only on the low prevalence of charismatic leaders, but also that leaders in the far-right tend to be more ideological than charismatic or pragmatic and typically will employ characteristics of more than one leadership style. Third, this study suggested that the ability of the police to intervene and end extremist groups, at least in the United States, is very limited. However, if the police are able to remove the leader, it may at least in some circumstances, be effective for some groups. However, police should be aware that their removal of a leader may instead have a galvanizing effect on the group, rather than weakening their resolve. The galvanizing effect may extend even beyond those targeted by law enforcement (e.g. Ruby Ridge) to the larger far-right movement. The role of police intervention in gang research, such as that by Malcolm Klein may provide more insights into how police intervention influences domestic far-right groups. Fourth, this study showed that Internet use by extremists is very important to their survival. This could have important implications for both academic research and law enforcement. This study only captured whether or not a group utilized the Internet. As technology advances, the use of computers and the Internet is sure to increase among extremist groups. The manner in which the Internet is used most effectively remains to be seen, but it could be an important research area in the future. The use of the Internet also has implications for law enforcement. While the use of confidential informants and undercover officers will still have some benefits, police may be able to infiltrate groups through the use of a computer. By using this tactic, police may be able to more readily identify which groups pose a greater threat than 135 others and allow them to utilize actual on the ground resources more efficiently. With increased use of the Internet, law enforcement may also see an increase of “cyber groups”, who exist mainly in cyberspace, but whose influence extends to real life. Fifth, this study may inform the policy discussions regarding the domestic far-right. Several findings from this study may inform policy discussions regarding domestic far-right groups and leaders. In particular, this study has shown that law enforcement intervention may not be an effective tactic. By acknowledging this reality, the policy debate can move from utilizing law enforcement as a primary tactic to explore other possible tactics. For example, Dugan and Chenowith (2012) found that repressive tactics increased terrorist attacks, while engaging groups in dialogue, cooperation and increasing the legitimacy of terrorist groups decreased attacks. Even though this study focused on terrorist groups, these findings suggest that if less repressive actions are taken against domestic far-right groups by the United States and local governments, it may have a greater impact, then repressive tactics such as police intervention. Further, these findings suggest that types of individual leaders may not be as important as previously thought. Since leaders are often the most visible member of a group, they may receive increased focus from policy makers, but that focus may be misplaced. Since individual leadership styles do not seem to directly impact group survival, policy makers may need to move their focus to other aspects of the group. Limitations A discussion of the research limitations is required. The first is the potential for bias or inaccuracy within open source materials. The amount of open sources available for each group or leader varied by how active they were. If a group or leader was not very active, less information was available in the open sources. This was especially true for those groups that did 136 not survive for three years. For example, it is possible that the leaders of these groups differed from leaders of groups that survived for more than three years. However, this information was not able to be captured. Further, through the use of online open sources, it is possible that the results were biased against those who did not use the Internet. It is possible that because online open sources were used, groups that did not use the Internet were active, even though they were not captured by the open sources. The second limitation is the arbitrary time frame from 1990 to 2008. As noted earlier, farright extremist groups have existed for over 100 years. It is entirely possible that groups that existed prior to 1990 were different from those groups that existed after 1990. Similarly, those groups that have existed since 2008 (especially those founded post 2008) may be very different than those from earlier in the 2000’s. Because of the lack of availability of open source information for those groups that existed prior to 1990, additional resources would have to be allocated to embark on this type of data collection. Another limitation is how the presidential election results were operationalized. States were coded as blue, red or purple. Purple states were those that supported a candidate for President from one political party and then changed their party support in the next election. It is possible that states that switch from supporting a Republican candidate in one election to a Democratic candidate in the next, differs from those that support a Democratic candidate in one election and then switch to a Republican. This difference was not accounted for in this study, but should be explored in future research. The emphasis on domestic far-right groups and leaders is the fourth limitation. Other types of extremist movements exist within the United States, such as the far-left and jihadist groups. These groups have not been studied regarding causes of organizational failure, and it is 137 unknown how far-right leaders and groups compare to these groups. While these findings may help to inform a discussion regarding these other types of groups, these findings should not be assumed to apply to other types of domestic extremist groups. The fifth limitation is that communication information was only available for 101 leaders. It is possible that those leaders who did not have communication information available in the open sources were different in some way than those for which information was found. However, this study provides an important first step in the utilization of this type of information to identify differences between domestic far-right leaders. An expanded, larger data collection building on this study could provide additional insights into these leaders. A final limitation of this study is the exclusive use of communication content to determine a leader’s individual style. Prior research has suggested that this type of information is adequate to determine a leader’s style (see Hermann, 1977, 1980a, 1980b, 2005), however integrating actual leader behavior into the identification process would enhance the information known about each leader and provide a richer picture into individual leadership styles. However, this type of behavioral information was not readily accessible for more than a few of the leaders using the current data collection methods. Future Research This dissertation and the database created will serve as the basis for my immediate research agenda. This final section will outline future research plans to advance the knowledge base of domestic far-right organizations and organizational death. As previously discussed, empirical research in these areas is limited, and each of these studies will contribute substantially to the current knowledge base. 138 The first three future articles will be a result of Chapter’s 4 and 5. The first study will examine the external and internal correlates of organizational death. It will be important for this to be the first paper because of its general nature. Because this paper will discuss a variety of factors, many of which have been anecdotally identified in the larger terrorism/extremism literature, it will provide a good starting point for empirical research into organizational death. Further, because this is the first paper specifically discussing the organizational death of domestic far-right groups, it will provide a general starting point from which to conduct other research examining specific areas in more detail. The second paper will examine the role of leadership in the organizational death of domestic far-right groups. This paper will be separate from the first because of the more specific nature of the topic. Leadership encompasses several different aspects and has been specifically identified as an important aspect of organizational death in the larger terrorism/extremism literature. This paper will examine leadership from an organizational perspective. The third paper will discuss the individual types of domestic far-right leaders. Even though these leaders were not found to significantly influence whether a group lives or dies, these leaders have not previously been categorized as charismatic, ideological or pragmatic, nor have they previously been coded on a scale. This paper will introduce these concepts to an audience that may not be familiar with these leadership types. Since studies like this have not been conducted previously, these papers will advance the known knowledge of the causes of organizational death for extremist groups and provide a foundation for future empirical research into organizational death. Future research should expand on these three foundational studies. A starting point would be to examine some of the findings from this dissertation in more detail. For example, studying 139 how political ideologies of citizens impacts groups. Groups were found to more readily die in states that were blue or red when compared to purple. An interesting study would be to examine why groups were more likely to survive in states whose citizens vary in their presidential political support. This will be the topic of the fourth paper. Berry et al. (1998) has developed measures of citizen political ideologies that may assist in understanding this phenomenon. Another potential area of future research would be to utilize the individual leadership styles to examine how those styles impact other group behavior. Another important next step would be to begin testing theory. This exploratory study has provided the groundwork for future theoretical examinations of organizational death of domestic far-right extremist groups. Crenshaw et al., (2012) has already applied population ecology theory (Hannan & Freeman, 1977) to a population of terrorist groups, and this theory may have some utility for the domestic far-right. Also, theories such as institutional theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) should be examined as well. Could it possibly explain the lack of variation among the individual leadership types? Future research will also expand on the data currently in the database. Since the last groups were added in 2008, Barack Obama was reelected for a second term and the economic recession has continued. These important events may have had an impact on the domestic farright. DHS (2009) reported a surge in group formation after Barack Obama was elected president, but it is unknown if those groups flared up and died, or if they have continued to exist. If they have continued to exist, are they similar to the groups that are currently in the database? Further, what types of leaders are currently heading these groups? Since several of the icons of the domestic far-right are either dead or in prison (see William Pierce, Richard Butler, Matthew Hale), are these groups headed by a different type of leader? Adding additional groups and 140 leaders could help to answer these questions and provide a greater understanding of the current state of domestic far-right groups. Also, adding far-left and jihadi groups to the database would provide for comparative studies examining a variety of organizational behavior and also organizational death. 141 APPENDICES 142 Appendix I External Correlates Table 7.1 External Correlates Broad Correlate Economic (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Economic (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Specific Correlate Urban/Rural Economics Reference Poverty Rate Gilliard-Matthews, 2011 Abel et al., 2012; Florida, 2012; Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998; Smith, 1994 Competition (Murphy & Group Density Meyers, 2008) Crenshaw et al., 2011; Oots, 1989 Technology (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Use of Internet Conway, 2006; Weimann, 2004, 2006 Legal and Government Constraints (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Police Intervention Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Gupta, 2008; Harmon, 2008; Jones & Libicki, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; TTSRL, 2008; USIP, 1999 Social Change (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Loss of Support Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Crothers, 2003; Horgan, 2009; Hudson, 1999; Long, 1990; McCauley, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; Oots, 1989; Phillips, 2011; TTSRL, 2008; USIP, 1999 Social Change (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Racial Heterogeneity McVeigh, 2004 Political Vulnerability (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Government Ideology Gilliard-Matthews, 2011 Political Vulnerability (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Presidential Electoral Divide Gilliard-Matthews, 2011 143 Appendix II Internal Correlates Table 7.2 Internal Correlates Broad Specific Correlate Correlate Instability Factional Splitting (Hager et al., 1999) Reference Cronin, 2009a; Horgan, 2009; Jones & Libicki, 2008; McCauley, 2008; Oots, 1989; TTSRL, 2008 Group Size Barron, West & Hannan, 1994; Freeman, Carroll, & Hannan, 1983; Hager, Galaskiewicz, Bielefeld, & Pins, 1999; Hannan, 1998; Hannan, Carroll, Dobrev, & Han, 1998; Ranger-Moore, 1997 Group Ideology Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006; Jones & Libicki, 2008; Vysotsky, 2004 Loss of Group Members due to Amnesty, Death, Imprisonment or Disenchantment Cronin, 2009a; Freilich, Chermak & Caspi, 2009; Hewitt, 2003; Hudson, 1999; McCauley, 2008; Moghadam, 2012; TTSRL, 2008 144 Appendix III Leadership Correlates Table 7.3 Leadership Correlates Leadership Correlate Removal of a Leader Reference Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; Gephardt, 1978; Gilmore, 2003; Hewitt, 2003; Harmon, 2008; Hudson, 1999; Jordan, 2009; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008 A Failure to Transition Leadership to the Next Generation Cronin, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; McCauley, 2008; TTSRL, 2008 Organizational Leadership Structures Beam, 1992; Chermak, 2002; Crenshaw, 1985; Horgan & Taylor, 1997; Kaplan & Weinburg, 1998; Kilberg, 2011, 2012; Mullins, 1988; Wolf, 1978; Zawodny, 1983 Type of Individual Leader Ligon et al., 2013; Mumford, 2006; Mumford, Scott, Marcy, Tutt, & Espejo, 2006; Strange & Mumford, 2002 145 Appendix IV Open Source Searching Protocol SEARCHING CASES Each identified incident and group was treated as a case study with the goal of compiling as much open source information as possible. Each case & group was systematically searched in existing terrorism databases, official sources, watch-group reports, as well as 26 web-engines grouped within a primary and secondary open-source search.7 These searches uncover all published open source materials on each case & group. Additional criminal cases uncovered during these searches were treated as separate incidents and added to the database. The information uncovered includes media accounts; government documents; court recordsindictments; appeals; videos; blogs; books; watch-group reports, movement produced materials and scholarly accounts. The primary open source search accesses the following seven resources: (1)Lexis-Nexis (2)Proquest (3)Yahoo (4)Google (5)Copernic (6)News Library (7) Westlaw The secondary open source search accesses the following resources: (8)Google Scholar (9)Amazon (10)Google U.S. Government 7 From March 2006 to March 2009, a 27th search engine- infotrac- was also searched. This engine was then removed from the JJC & MSU online libraries. Infotrac focused on health issues & was used for cases that implicated chemical, biological, nuclear, or radiological weapons. 146 (11)Federation of American Scientists (12)Google Video (13)Center for the Study of Intelligence (14)Surf Wax (15)Dogpile (16)Mamma (17)Librarians’ Internet Index (18)Scirus (19)All the Web (20)Google News (21)Google Blog (22)Homeland Security Digital Library Coders (see below) searched each suspect in four additional search engines to uncover prior and/or subsequent crimes they may have committed: (23) Vinelink, (24) The inmate locator (25)Individual State Department of Corrections (DOCs) (26) Blackbookonline.info (Freilich & Chermak, 2010) 147 Appendix V External Correlates Table 7.4 External Correlates Broad Correlate Economic (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Specific Correlate Urban/Rural Economics Operationalization 0. Not Urban 1. Urban Economic (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Poverty Rate Percentage of the population living in poverty Competition (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Group Density Total number of domestic far-right groups located within the state. Technology (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Use of Internet 0. Utilizes the Internet 1. Does not utilize the Internet Legal and Government Constraints (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Police Intervention 0. Police have not intervened 1. Police have intervened Social Change (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Loss of Support 0. Did not suffer a loss of support 1. Suffered a loss of support Social Change (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Racial Heterogeneity Percentage of racial diversity Political Vulnerability (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Government Ideology Calculated measure of government ideology Political Vulnerability (Murphy & Meyers, 2008) Presidential Electoral Divide 148 1. Blue state (Democrat) 2. Red State (Republican) 3. Purple State (Mixed) Appendix VI Correlation Matrix for External Correlates Table 7.5 Correlation Matrix for External Correlates Variable Urban Poverty Rate Racial Heterogeneity Government Ideology Presidential Ideology Group Density Did not use Internet Police Intervention Loss of Support Urban Poverty Rate Racial Government Presidential Group Heterogeneity Ideology Ideology Density 1 -0.257 1 0.463 0.233 1 0.097 0.093 0.118 1 -0.133 0.162 0.098 0.026 -0.023 0.439 -0.248 -0.082 1 0.041 1 0.009 0.082 -0.156 -0.04 0.062 -0.045 0.005 0.129 -0.107 -0.051 0.13 -0.097 0.001 -0.038 0.089 0.128 -0.023 0.01 149 Did not use Internet 1 -0.134 -0.04 Police Loss of Intervention Support 1 0.046 1 Appendix VII Internal Correlates Table 7.6 Internal Correlates Broad Correlate Specific Correlate Instability (Hager Factional Splitting et al., 1999) Reference 0. Did not suffer factional splitting 1. Suffered factional splitting Group Size 0. More than 200 members 1. Less than 200 members Group Ideology 1. Political Group 2. Religious Group 3. Youth Cultural Group Loss of Group Members due to Amnesty, Death, Imprisonment or Disenchantment 0. Did not lose group members 1. Lost group members 150 Appendix VIII Correlation Matrix for Internal Correlates Table 7.7 Correlation Matrix for Internal Correlates Lost Group Group Variable Members Ideology Lost Group Members 1 Group Ideology 0.314 1 Group Size 0.1 -0.154 Factional Splitting 0.167 -0.007 151 Group Size 1 0.197 Factional Splitting 1 Appendix IX Leadership Correlates Table 7.8 Leadership Correlates Leadership Correlate Leader was Removed Operationalization 0. No 1. Yes How Leader was Removed 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Leader is killed or violently incapacitated Leader is arrested Leader died of natural causes Leader is fired Leader leaves voluntarily A Failure to Transition Leadership to the Next Generation 0. Group successfully transitioned leadership 1. Group did not successfully transition leadership 1. Bureaucratic structure with a single Organizational Leadership Structures 2. 3. 4. 5. Type of Individual Leader leader Bureaucratic structure with governing board Hub and spoke structure Market structure/leaderless structure All channel structure Seven point scale for each type of leadership 152 Appendix X Correlation Matrix for Individual Leadership Styles Table 7.9 Correlation Matrix for Individual Leadership Styles Leadership Type Charismatic Ideological Charismatic 1 Ideological -0.454 1 Pragmatic 0.016 -0.441 153 Pragmatic 1 Appendix XI Overview of Influence Strategies Used Between Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic Leaders (Mumford, 2006) Table 7.10 Overview of Influence Strategies Style Communication Delivery Communication Content • Charismatic Emotionally charged appeals about the future; sensory imagery • • • Vague about nature of relationships and plan details in general. Use of positive models/future outcomes Promises wide-spreading changes, speaks in bombastic terms; heavy use of hyperbole Seeks multiple, vague positive outcomes Specific reference to beliefs and core values (e.g., referencing parallels to the ideologies of a culture’s forefathers, or noting the struggles of ancestors who Emotional comparisons overcame some hardship) to past referent groups; Ideological • Use of negative models/struggles sensory imagery • Heavy use of supernatural themes and universal appeals to “light and dark (good and evil) • Seeks few but transcendent outcomes • Specific details about how an exact tactic or strategy will solve an immediate problem rather than making appeals toward the past or future Rational appeals based • Mix of both positive and negative models, depending on on logic, data, and problem-solving rather situation/facts Pragmatic than emotions and • Focuses on present conditions of followers and offers subjective construal incremental solutions to improve conditions • Seeks variable, malleable outcomes (depending on situation) Ligon, G.S., Harris, D.H., Harms, M., & Friedly, J. (2013) Time Frame Future: Emotional appeal to a futureoriented vision, vague details; can change based on popularity. Example Leaders Violent: Benito Mussolini Nonviolent: Fiorello H. LaGuardia • 154 Past: Inspirational appeal of a pastoriented vision toward leader’s personal values. Present: Presentoriented and relies more on logic and rational persuasion than reference to the past or promise of markedly different future. Violent: Pol Pot Nonviolent: Mohandas Gandhi Violent: Al Capone Nonviolent: Benjamin Franklin Appendix XII Leadership Rubric Charismatic Leader Communication Delivery Emotionally charged appeals about the future. Leader uses emotion to exude pride and confidence in the future direction of the organization and to connect with followers. Uses sensory imagery. Uses language that appeals to the follower’s senses. Words and phrases such as strenuous, throw off the shackles of bondage, etc. Communication Content Vague about the nature of relationships and plan details in general. Because of focus on the future, specific details concerning the leader’s vision are not clearly articulated, which provides leader flexibility Use of positive models/future outcomes. The leader focuses on their vision for the future, and positive outcomes, rather than dwelling on any negative experiences that have happened in the past. Promises wide spreading changes, speaks in bombastic terms with heavy use of hyperbole. Leader promises wide spreading changes using language that makes the changes proposed sound very important and describes them in a manner that will elicit strong feelings from followers. Seeks multiple vague positive outcomes. Because of the lack of vision clarity and flexibility, leaders are able to seek multiple positive outcomes or goals, rather than one or two specific goals. Time Frame Emotional appeal to a future oriented vision. Articulation of the mental model and vision is future oriented. Charismatic Score 155 Ideological Leader Communication Delivery Emotional Comparisons to past referent groups. The leader uses emotion to connect with followers and projects a vision based on an idealized past. They also will reference past groups that assist in the articulation of that vision. Sensory Imagery. The leader uses language that appeals to the follower’s senses. An example would be referring to the government as “bloodsuckers”. Communication Content Specific reference to beliefs and core values (referencing parallels to the ideologies of a culture’s forefathers or noting the struggles of ancestors who overcame some hardship). Comparisons of the present to the past. The leader compares their beliefs and core values to those of leaders from the past. They may also reference struggles endured by past leaders or groups as compared to those they are encountering today. Use of negative models/struggles. Because of the focus on past referent groups, leaders will often use negative aspects such as victimization, injustices and struggles. Also, leaders may focus on current problems and failures facing the group. Heavy use of supernatural themes and universal appeals to “light and dark” (good and evil). Ideological leaders frame their vision as black and white, with very little gray area. Therefore they will frame events, people, institutions, etc. as good or evil. Seeks few but transcendent outcomes. Unlike charismatics who have multiple vague goals, ideological leaders seek only a few transcendent outcomes. These goals will avoid mistakes currently being made. Further, ideological leaders will rarely deviate from their stated goals, thereby developing a form of tunnel vision. Time Frame Inspirational appeal to a past oriented vision toward the leader’s personal values. Leader incorporates their own personal values into their vision, which is oriented toward the idealized past, rather than focusing on the future. Ideological Score 156 Pragmatic Leader Communication Delivery Rational appeals based on logic, data and problem-solving rather than emotions and subjective construal. Pragmatic leaders use very little emotion in their speech delivery. Will appeal to followers with a logical presentation of the issues facing the group. Communication Content Specific details about how an exact tactic or strategy will solve an immediate problem rather than making appeals toward the past or the future. Leader will define the problem currently facing followers and tell them specifically how they intend to solve it. Mix of both positive and negative models depending on the situation and facts. Their model depends on the situation facing the group. They are much more flexible in this regard than charismatic or ideological leaders. Focuses on present condition of followers and offers incremental solutions to improve conditions. Leader does not generally focus on the past or future, but instead focuses on what is affecting their followers currently. The leader will offer detailed solutions for solving the current problem or crisis. Seeks variable, malleable outcomes (depending on the situation). The pragmatic leader will frame their goals depending on the immediate, specific crisis facing their followers. These goals/outcomes are subject to change if present conditions change. Their Time Frame Present oriented. Focused on the current state of their group and their followers. Relies on logic and rational persuasion rather than reference to past or promise of markedly different future. 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