Maarten De Waele

Why Do Flemish Youth Participate in Right-Wing Disruptive Groups?

The events of 9/11 have given rise to an increase in studies on political violence and terrorism. Yet, according to Horgan (The psychology of terrorism. Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2005) and Bouhana and Wikstrom (Contemp Readings Law Soc Justice 2(2), 9–79, 2010), the increase in publications has not led to an increased number of empirical studies on the pull and push factors of participation in extremist groups. In fact, Horgan argues that theoretical cloudiness around the concepts of extremism and terrorism may have impeded our understanding of the phenomena and their causes. Some scholars, however, have attempted to integrate fragmented knowledge in a theoretical framework. Building upon insights derived from theoretical and empirical contributions regarding participation in gangs and violent extremist groups, the present inquiry seeks to establish an integrated framework useful for studying participation in right-wing disruptive groups. We have drawn our inspiration from perceived injustice theory, social identity theory, self-control theory, and social learning theory. Consequently, we present an integrated model that stresses the important roles of perceived injustice, anomia, authoritarianism, and thrill-seeking behavior for understanding right-wing disruptive group membership. The model also allows us to investigate the relationship of the above factors to mediating attitudes such as feelings of superiority, nationalism, and ethnocentrism. Moreover, we propose that the aforementioned mechanisms further increase the likelihood of right-wing disruptive group membership through moral support for right-wing extremism and exposure to racist peers. To test the integrated model, a series of SEM models were run. Our analyses were based on an online survey administered to 723 adolescents and young adults in Flanders, Belgium. The results support our conceptual model that integrates perceived injustice theory and self-control theory to account for the more proximate causes (moral support for right-wing extremism and positive attitudes towards racism of participation in right-wing disruptive groups).