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

Abstract

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 Wikström (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).

Appendices

Appendix 1: Question Wording and Scale Construct

Perceived injustice (five-point scale translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): “It makes me angry when I think of how I am treated in comparison to others,” “I think I am worse off than others in Belgium,” “I have the feeling of being discriminated,” “If I compare myself with others in Belgium than I feel unfairly treated.” “I think the group to which I belong is worse off than other people in Belgium,” “It makes me angry when I think of how my group is treated in comparison to other groups in Belgium,” “I have the feeling that the group to which I belong is discriminated,” “If I compare the group to which I belong with other groups in Belgium, I think we are treated unfair.” “I think I am being treated with justice” (R), “I think I am being treated with respect” (R), “I think that, most of the time, I am being treated fairly” (R), “I think that if I have complaints about anything, that, normally, people listen to my o pinion” (R).

Group threat (five-point scale translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): “In Belgium, Muslim themselves as better than Belgians,” “Most Muslims in Belgium will never understand how Belgians are,” “In Belgium, people from other countries do not understand what is written in the Belgian constitution (for instance, that everyone can say what he or she thinks and everyone has to be treated equally),” “In Belgium, people from other countries have the right to be more important than Belgians,” “People from other countries get to much money from the Belgian government in comparison to the Belgians,” “Non-Muslims in Belgium do not get the respect that they deserve from Muslims,” “In Belgium, people from other countries do not understand how Belgian see the world,” “In Belgium, Muslims have, in comparison to Non-Muslims, other values about their work,” “If you do business with the Jews, you have to be extremely careful,” “Belgians do not get the respect that they deserve from Jews,” “Jews want to dominate everything,” “Most Jews think that they are better than others,” “Muslims should not try to change the norms and values of Belgians,” “In Belgium, people from other countries have other norms and values than Belgians,” “Many companies in Belgium will prefer to work with people from other countries, instead of Belgians, even if Belgians are more suitable for the job,” “Jews incite war and give us the blame.”

Superiority (five-point scale translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): “What I think is the truth,” “I think that if everyone would properly reflect, they would think the same as me,” “I think that everyone should be like me,” “When people think differently, they are less valuable to me,” “it scares me if people think different than me,” “I actually never met people who think different than me.”

Anomia (five-point scale from Srole’s study of personal alienation 1956, dimension of political powerlessness) “There is no sense in voting, the parties do what they want to do anyway,” “Parties are only interested in my vote, not in my opinion,” “So many people vote in elections that my vote doesn’t make any difference,” “During the elections parties promise things, but eventually nothing changes,” “Most politicians promise a lot, but nothing is done,” “Politicians have never learned to listen to people like me,” “Actually there is not even one politician that I would trust,” “In general, we can support on our political leaders to take the best decisions” (R).

Negative attitudes towards the out-group (in this case immigrants) (five-point scale derived and translated from the SCIF⁷ questionnaire): “Immigrants come here to exploit our social security,” “Immigrants are a threat to our culture and customs,” “In general, immigrants can’t be trusted,” “If the number of jobs decreases, the immigrants should be sent back to their own countries,” “The presence of different cultures in is an enrichment for our society”(R), “Immigrants contribute to the wealth of our country”(R), “We should welcome the immigrants who want to live in Belgium.”

Authoritarianism (five-point scale derived from Altemeyer 1998): “obedience and respect for authority are the two most important virtues children have to learn,” “young people are often rebellious, but the will have to adapt as they get older,” “what we need most, more than laws and institutions, is a few courageous and devoted leaders in whom people can put their faith,” “People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong,” “Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse,” “Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feebleminded people,” “If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off,” “People should have more respect for our national heritage and habits,” “those who break the law must be strongly punished to learn what is right and wrong,” “Laws need to be executed, especially regarding rioters and revolutionaries.”

Flemish identity (five-point scale, translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): “It is important to me to be Flemish,” “I am proud of being Flemish,” “The fact that I am Flemish is totally not important to me” (R), “I think that there can only be a beautiful world if everyone is proud to be Flemish,” “It makes me scared that people are not proud to be Flemish.”

Moral Support for right-wing extremism (five-point scale translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): “I understand that some right-wing extremists use violence against the people who have the power in Belgium,” “I can understand right-wing extremists who disrupt the order,” “I can understand right-wing extremists who use violence against others.”

Positive attitudes towards racism (four-point scale, derived and translated from Van den Bos et al. 2009): Do you think your friends would think it is OK if … “you would say that you don’t want to have anything to do with immigrants?”, “you would write ‘stop immigration’ on a public wall,” “you would fight with an immigrant without any reason.”

Thrill-seeking behavior (five-point scale derived from Grasmick et al. 1993): “I sometimes find it exciting to do things that could be dangerous,” “I often do things without thinking of the consequences,” “Sometimes I will take a risk just for the fun of it.”

Left/Right identification (seven-point scale from extreme left to extreme right): Where do you position yourself on a scale from (1) extreme-left to (7) extreme-right.

Participation in disruptive groups (five-point scale derived from the Eurogang definition and left-right identification questionnaire): “Do you consider yourself to be a member of a group of friends (no organisation or association) that frequently meets and considers itself as a group?” (1 = yes, 0 = no). Four follow-up questions were (1) How long have you been a member of the group? (2) How big is your group? (3) “Do members of this group get involved in fights with other cliques?” (4) “Are members of this group involved in law-breaking?” To maintain the right-wing disruptive group respondents need to score positive on the introduction question, question (1) and (2) and question (3) or (4). Furthermore they had to indicate a score 6 or 7 on the left/right scale (Tables 10.2 and 10.3).

Table 10.2 Overview of scale constructs and reliabilities

Table 10.3 Descriptive statistics

Appendix 2: Indirect Effects

Total indirect effects of independent variables on the dependent variable (Table 10.4).

Table 10.4 Total indirect effect (and significance level) of the independent variables on RWD group participation

Strongest specific indirect effects

• Perceived injustice (0.067***)

  Perceived injustice > Group Threat > Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.033**)

• Anomia (0.089***)

  Anomia > Authoritarianism > Group Threat > Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.029***)

• Authoritarianism (0.170***)

  Authoritarianism > Group Threat > Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.155***)

• Group threat (0.266***)

  Group Threat > Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.179***)

• Negative attitudes towards out-group (0.295***)

  Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.225***)

• Flemish identity (0.050**)

  Flemish identity > Negative attitudes towards out-group > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.038**)

• Superiority (0.028*)

  Superiority > Moral support for RW extremism > Participation in RWD groups (0.028*)

• Thrill seeking behavior (0.115***)

  Thrill seeking behavior > Positive attitudes towards racism > Participation in RWD groups (0.072**)