Agency in extremist narratives
Who has it, who needs it
Haroro Ingram posited that extremist propaganda typically describes a “system of meaning” that contains the following linked concepts: In-group, crisis, out-group and solution. According to Ingram, extremist narratives describe a crisis caused by an out-group and affecting the in-group from which the extremist movement seeks to recruit. The extremist movement then offers a solution to the crisis, which I have defined as “hostile action” against the out-group.[i]
A lot of variations can inhabit this overarching narrative. Following up on my last newsletter, I want to look more deeply at the question of agency in extremist narratives. This is a first draft of my thoughts on this subject, subject to later revision, but I think there’s some value in setting out a few concepts and terms that may be useful to anyone trying to analyze extremist propaganda and ideologies.
On first consideration, Ingram’s system of meaning seems to carry some pretty clear implications about agency. Specifically, according to the extremist narrative:
The out-group has enough agency to cause a crisis that harms the in-group.
The extremist group has enough agency to solve the crisis.
When you drill down, things get more complicated. Extremist ideologies typically divide in-groups and out-groups into subdivisions, and the agency accorded to each of those subdivisions can be very different.
To start, I’ve identified three major subdivisions of the in-group:
Eligible in-group: The group to which an extremist movement belongs and to which it appeals for support. In the case of White supremacists, for instance, the eligible in-group generally means “White people.” (How “White” is defined is a topic for another day.)
Extremist in-group: The specific movement to which an extremist ideologue belongs, for instance, the KKK or the Atomwaffen Division.
Ineligible in-group: Members of the in-group who, by their actions, risk assignment to an out-group. For White supremacists, this can include people who engage in interracial marriage or people who align with out-groups against an extremist in-group.
Most of the extremist narratives we discuss these days proceed very broadly from an argument that the eligible in-group has high merit but low agency, specifically meaning the eligible in-group lacks the agency to effectively combat an out-group threat, thus necessitating support for an extremist movement. (I’ll talk about important exceptions to this argument in a future newsletter.)
But eligible in-groups don’t simply lose their agency. They fail to exercise the agency they have. Thus, it’s very common for extremist in-groups to blame the eligible in-group for its own lack of agency, citing alleged failures such as ignorance, complacency, corruption or believing misinformation.
The extremist in-group therefore has a dual mandate: First, to exercise its agency against an out-group through direct, hostile action. Second, to awaken the eligible in-group to reclaim its own agency by embracing an extremist ideology and its program of hostile action against out-groups.
The second mandate helps explain why extremist groups often turn to terrorism as their preferred form of hostile action. Terrorism is a theatrical exercise meant by example to inspire an eligible in-group to reclaim its agency. An example would be Timothy McVeigh’s desire to inspire an uprising against the U.S. government, or the baton-passing pattern of recent White supremacist manifestos, which often include detailed instructions on how to emulate their authors. We sometimes refer to this dynamic as “awakening” the eligible in-group, or more recently as “red-pilling.”
Extremist narratives often argue for subdivisions of the out-group as well. Out-groups generally fall into three categories:
Controlling out-groups: This out-group subdivision controls the crisis that affects the in-group. For most White supremacist groups, the controlling out-group is seen as Jewish. Conspiracy theories, which by their nature are deeply concerned with agency, are the most common type of narrative used to describe and explain control.
Controlled out-groups: Out-group members who do the bidding of the controlling out-group. Hostility toward controlled out-group members is not based solely on how a controlled out-group carries out the bidding of a controlling out-group, but it’s a big part of the mix. Some extremist movements will praise members of a controlled out-group who are perceived as reclaiming agency from their controllers. This helps explain, for instance, why some White supremacists can make common cause with Black anti-Semites, at least temporarily, although there’s more to it than that.
Neutral out-groups: People who are excluded from the in-group but not the primary focus of hostile action. Examples of neutral out-groups include so-called “model minorities” as described in certain White supremacist frames, who are at times seen to be outside the focus of the primary extremist crisis narratives. Neutrality is a fragile state in extremist ideologies, and it can be fleeting as well. Neutral out-groups may be hated by extremist in-groups, but they are not seen as prime movers within the crisis. But neutrality is a fragile state in extremist ideologies, and fleeting as well. The perception of out-group neutrality can shift dramatically, with little provocation.
So how does all this translate into targeting guidance, which you may (distantly) recall was the jumping off point for this discussion last week?
If this looks pretty vague, well, you’re right. There are not especially strong or consistent correlations between the agency of a particular group and an extremist organization or individual’s decision to target that group, which the exception that ineligible in-group members are often targeted more harshly than any other subdivision, a dynamic sometimes known as the “black sheep” effect.[ii]
But we’ve set the table, and in a forthcoming note, we’ll dine on a follow-up with some specific examples of how agency shapes extremist crisis and solution narratives. For now, I will simply suggest that these narratives can be extremely complex, and the targeting decisions that emerge from these narratives are as well. As with many elements of extremism, the intuitive guess is not always correct. Not all extremist movements have the luxury of basing targeting decisions on the agency of outside groups. Many ideological targeting arguments are based on a hard look in the mirror.
[i] Ingram, H. J. “A “Linkage-Based” Approach to Combating Militant Islamist Propaganda: A Two-Tiered Framework for Practitioners”, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague 7, no. 6 (2016). p. 4.
[ii] Marques, José M., and Vincent Y. Yzerbyt. "The black sheep effect: Judgmental extremity towards ingroup members in inter‐and intra‐group situations." European Journal of Social Psychology 18, no. 3 (1988): 287-292.
Quickie - typo in table. Should be “controlled out-group”