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A Comprehensive Application of Rational Choice Theory: How Costs Imposed by, and Benefits Derived from, the U.S. Federal Government Affect Incidents Perpetrated by the Radical Eco-Movement

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Abstract

Objectives

In this study, we examine the effect of both the costs and benefits of perpetration, along with the rewards of abstention, on the behavior of a uniquely rational, yet frequent perpetrator of ideologically-motivated crime: the radical eco-movement.

Methods

We combine data on U.S. federal government actions and incidents perpetrated by the radical eco-movement to assess multiple components of rational choice theory. Our investigation employs Granger causality and autoregressive Poisson analyses.

Results

As a whole, we find that what the government does seems to influence the behavior of the radical eco-movement; namely, when government behaviors increase the costs of perpetration, eco-incidents decline. Further, we find partial evidence that raising the marginal benefit of perpetration is associated with more incidents.

Conclusions

Theorizing as to why such nuanced findings were discovered, we conclude that the decision-making process of the radical eco-movement is more complex than originally anticipated.

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Notes

  1. While this piece is explicitly designed to counter RCT’s dissidents, other scholarship has also evaluated the effects of benefit perceptions (Matsueda et al. 2006; Piliavin et al. 1986; Uggen and Thompson 2003) and found evidence that illegal monetary gains and psychic rewards affect offender decision-making.

  2. While we would ideally include punishment by both state and federal governments, resource limits preclude us from collecting data on all state-level arrests and prosecutions. However, we also argue that federal level activity is more salient to the movement as it signals precedent. In addition, this type of deterrence is less vulnerable to displacement to another jurisdiction.

  3. Although this entity had a focus on animal enterprise attacks, its chronology did include attacks against environmental targets as well.

  4. For example, Walter Edmund Bond was solely responsible for a series of arsons but had the Animal Liberation Front’s (ALF) “press office” release a statement saying they were committed in the name of ALF.

  5. We did not include the unit-root tests in the paper to save space. The test results are available upon request.

  6. In the economic literature, when using the Granger causality test, people tend to use the term “Granger causes” when describing causal associations. However, this is not the norm in criminology. Thus, we mostly use “cause” instead of “Granger cause” in this manuscript to avoid awkward language.

  7. There is one important point that needs clarification regarding the Granger causality test. Enders (2004) points out that Granger causality is somewhat different from a test of exogeneity (Enders 2004). An exogeneity between two variables requires a temporal order and causal connections between the occurrences of the two. Granger causality examines whether the use of current and past values (or changes) of one variable help predict future values (or changes) of another variable. Therefore, the Granger causality test satisfies the temporal order requirement of an exogeneity test. Without the inclusion of all possible independent variables in the model, however, the Granger causality test cannot be used to identify the true causes of a variable. In addition, a contemporaneous effect between two variables would also be considered as causal under the Granger causality framework. This type of relationship is usually referred to as “Granger Causation” to be distinguished from “true causation”.

  8. Per the suggestion of the reviewers, we tested the effects of each time lag to see if the differential effects due to different time length could possibly cancel out each other and render the overall findings insignificant.

  9. We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion of adding the VAR block Granger analysis tests to the paper. The null hypothesis of this test is Granger non-causality. That is, a significant finding indicates the existence of Granger Causality running from one variable to the outcome variable in the model.

  10. These marginal effects were calculated by exponentiating the estimated coefficients. As this shows the change in the baseline rates, we subtracted the exponentiated value from one.

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Author notes

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO, USA

      Jennifer Varriale Carson

    2. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

      Laura Dugan

    3. Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

      Sue-Ming Yang

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    1. Jennifer Varriale Carson
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    2. Laura Dugan
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    Correspondence to Jennifer Varriale Carson.

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    Carson, J.V., Dugan, L. & Yang, SM. A Comprehensive Application of Rational Choice Theory: How Costs Imposed by, and Benefits Derived from, the U.S. Federal Government Affect Incidents Perpetrated by the Radical Eco-Movement. J Quant Criminol 36, 701–724 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-019-09427-8

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