Understanding Inter-Group Cooperation Among Far-Right Extremist Groups: Through the Two-Pyramid Model of Radicalization and Textual Analysis

Abstract

After the event of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, NC, it has become clear that extremist white nationalist groups communicate and interact with each other. What is unclear is the criteria they use when choosing to cooperate. I seek to address this gap, by adapting the McCauley and Moskalenko Two-Pyramid Model of Radicalization to the organizations themselves and analyzing whether or not it is opinions or actions that shape one group's opinion of another. To answer this, I apply textual analysis to leaked communications from several white nationalist servers, I isolate statements referencing other white nationalist organizations, code whether or not they are referring to the group's actions or their opinions, and then code whether the statement is negative or positive. I then combined the results of the latter two textual analyses into four different values referred to as statements. With this analysis, I will test the following: H1 - Extremist groups speak more frequently about others' extreme actions than their extreme opinions. H2 - When speaking of other groups' opinions there will be more variation in positive and negative opinion statements. H3 - Groups with a higher number of negative opinion statements than positive opinion statements will have fewer instances of positive action statements compared to negative action statements My analysis shows complete support for H1 and H2 and partial support for H3.