IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/globco/qt2rj4t2rh.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Selling Violent Extremism

Author

Listed:
  • Klinenberg, Danny

Abstract

Why do people join domestic violent extremist organizations? This paper examines an understudied reason: organizational outreach. I study how the inflow of new members to the Oath Keepers, America’s largest paramilitary organization, is affected when the group’s leadership employs three tactics: showcasing their ideological zeal through armed standoffs with the government, membership discounts, and sports sponsorships. Using a variant of the synthetic control method, I find that standoffs increase new memberships by 150 percent, discounts increase new memberships by over 60 percent, and sports sponsorships decrease new memberships. Membership is less responsive in counties with higher income inequality, but is more responsive in politically conservative counties. The findings provide new insights into ways extremist groups attract potential recruits.

Suggested Citation

  • Klinenberg, Danny, 2024. "Selling Violent Extremism," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt2rj4t2rh, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:globco:qt2rj4t2rh
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2rj4t2rh.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sean E Mulholland, 2010. "Hate Fuel: On the Relationship Between Local Government Policy and Hate Group Activity," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 480-499.
    2. Schmalensee, Richard, 1978. "A Model of Advertising and Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(3), pages 485-503, June.
    3. Carl Shapiro, 1983. "Optimal Pricing of Experience Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 497-507, Autumn.
    4. David Van Dijcke & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Profiling Insurrection: Characterizing Collective Action Using Mobile Device Data," Working Papers 2021-13, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    5. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    6. Cuccu, Liliana & Pontarollo, Nicola, 2024. "Logistic hubs and support for radical-right populism: Evidence from Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto, 2021. "Synthetic controls with imperfect pretreatment fit," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1197-1221, November.
    8. Andreas Steinmayr, 2021. "Contact versus Exposure: Refugee Presence and Voting for the Far Right," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 310-327, May.
    9. Sabet, Navid & Liebald, Marius & Friebel, Guido, 2022. "Terrorism and Voting: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 17525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Carvalho, Carlos & Masini, Ricardo & Medeiros, Marcelo C., 2018. "ArCo: An artificial counterfactual approach for high-dimensional panel time-series data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 207(2), pages 352-380.
    11. Xu, Yiqing, 2017. "Generalized Synthetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 57-76, January.
    12. Kendrick Morales & Prosper Raynold & Jing Li, 2018. "The empirical relationship between commitment enhancement devices and terrorism," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(50), pages 5366-5380, October.
    13. Benjamin Crost, 2021. "Economic Conditions and the Rise of Anti-Democratic Extremism," Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers 24, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hopkins, Ed, 2007. "Adaptive learning models of consumer behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(3-4), pages 348-368.
    2. Li, Xingyu & Shen, Yan & Zhou, Qiankun, 2024. "Confidence intervals of treatment effects in panel data models with interactive fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 240(1).
    3. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    4. Ghadir Asadi & Mohammad H. Mostafavi-Dehzooei, 2022. "The Role of Learning in Adaptation to Technology: The Case of Groundwater Extraction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-37, June.
    5. Pracejus, John W. & O'Guinn, Thomas C. & Olsen, G. Douglas, 2013. "When white space is more than “burning money”: Economic signaling meets visual commercial rhetoric," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 211-218.
    6. Dennis Shen & Peng Ding & Jasjeet Sekhon & Bin Yu, 2022. "Same Root Different Leaves: Time Series and Cross-Sectional Methods in Panel Data," Papers 2207.14481, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    7. C F Elliott & R Simmons, 2007. "Determinants of UK box office success: the impact of quality signals," Working Papers 584026, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    8. Mahenc, Philippe & Meunier, Valérie, 2006. "Early Sales of Bordeaux grands crus," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 57-74, April.
    9. Fischer, Greg & Karlan, Dean & McConnell, Margaret & Raffler, Pia, 2019. "Short-term subsidies and seller type: A health products experiment in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 110-124.
    10. Jie Bai, 2016. "Melons as Lemons: Asymmetric Information, Consumer Learning and Seller Reputation," Natural Field Experiments 00540, The Field Experiments Website.
    11. Xiong, Ruoxuan & Pelger, Markus, 2023. "Large dimensional latent factor modeling with missing observations and applications to causal inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 271-301.
    12. repec:lan:wpaper:1090 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ajay Kalra & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 1998. "Response to Competitive Entry: A Rationale for Delayed Defensive Reaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 380-405.
    14. Choi, Jay Pil, 2003. "Bundling new products with old to signal quality, with application to the sequencing of new products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1179-1200, October.
    15. Jason Poulos & Andrea Albanese & Andrea Mercatanti & Fan Li, 2021. "Retrospective causal inference via matrix completion, with an evaluation of the effect of European integration on cross-border employment," Papers 2106.00788, arXiv.org.
    16. Stefano, Roberta di & Mellace, Giovanni, 2020. "The inclusive synthetic control method," Discussion Papers on Economics 14/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    17. Kim, Jeong-Yoo & Berg, Nathan, 2017. "Reexamining the Schmalensee effect," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-12.
    18. Victor Chernozhukov & Kaspar Wüthrich & Yinchu Zhu, 2021. "An Exact and Robust Conformal Inference Method for Counterfactual and Synthetic Controls," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 116(536), pages 1849-1864, October.
    19. Mark W. Nichols, 1998. "Advertising and Quality in the U.S. Market for Automobiles," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 922-939, April.
    20. Hikmet Gunay, 2014. "Waiting for Signaling Quality," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 364-386, October.
    21. Bagwell, Kyle & Ramey, Garey, 1993. "Advertising as Information: Matching Products to Buyers," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 199-243, Summer.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences; Far-right extremism; recruitment; push-pull factors; causal inference;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:globco:qt2rj4t2rh. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://escholarship.org/uc/igcc/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.