IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/globco/qt2rj4t2rh.html

Selling Violent Extremism

Author

Listed:
  • Klinenberg, Danny

Abstract

Why do people join domestic violent extremist organizations? This paper examines an understudied reason: organizational outreach. I study how the inflow of new members to the Oath Keepers, America’s largest paramilitary organization, is affected when the group’s leadership employs three tactics: showcasing their ideological zeal through armed standoffs with the government, membership discounts, and sports sponsorships. Using a variant of the synthetic control method, I find that standoffs increase new memberships by 150 percent, discounts increase new memberships by over 60 percent, and sports sponsorships decrease new memberships. Membership is less responsive in counties with higher income inequality, but is more responsive in politically conservative counties. The findings provide new insights into ways extremist groups attract potential recruits.

Suggested Citation

  • Klinenberg, Danny, 2024. "Selling Violent Extremism," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt2rj4t2rh, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:globco:qt2rj4t2rh
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2rj4t2rh.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xu, Yiqing, 2017. "Generalized Synthetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 57-76, January.
    2. Carvalho, Carlos & Masini, Ricardo & Medeiros, Marcelo C., 2018. "ArCo: An artificial counterfactual approach for high-dimensional panel time-series data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 207(2), pages 352-380.
    3. Kendrick Morales & Prosper Raynold & Jing Li, 2018. "The empirical relationship between commitment enhancement devices and terrorism," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(50), pages 5366-5380, October.
    4. Schmalensee, Richard, 1978. "A Model of Advertising and Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(3), pages 485-503, June.
    5. Navid Sabet & Marius Liebald & Guido Friebel, 2025. "Terrorism and Voting: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Germany," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 407-440, August.
    6. Benjamin Crost, 2021. "Economic Conditions and the Rise of Anti-Democratic Extremism," Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers 24, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.
    7. Cuccu, Liliana & Pontarollo, Nicola, 2024. "Logistic hubs and support for radical-right populism: Evidence from Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    9. Sean E Mulholland, 2010. "Hate Fuel: On the Relationship Between Local Government Policy and Hate Group Activity," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 480-499.
    10. Carl Shapiro, 1983. "Optimal Pricing of Experience Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 497-507, Autumn.
    11. David Van Dijcke & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Profiling Insurrection: Characterizing Collective Action Using Mobile Device Data," Working Papers 2021-13, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    12. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto, 2021. "Synthetic controls with imperfect pretreatment fit," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1197-1221, November.
    13. Andreas Steinmayr, 2021. "Contact versus Exposure: Refugee Presence and Voting for the Far Right," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(2), pages 310-327, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hopkins, Ed, 2007. "Adaptive learning models of consumer behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(3-4), pages 348-368.
    2. Li, Xingyu & Shen, Yan & Zhou, Qiankun, 2024. "Confidence intervals of treatment effects in panel data models with interactive fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 240(1).
    3. Chen, Qiang & Xiao, Zhijie & Yao, Qingsong, 2025. "Quantile control via random forest," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 249(PA).
    4. Rapold, Ingo, 1988. "Qualitätsunsicherheit als Ursache von Marktversagen - Anpassungsmechanismen und Regulierungsbedarf [Quality Uncertainty as a Source of Market Failure: Adjustment Mechanisms and Regulatory Implicati," MPRA Paper 126467, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Rapold, Ingo, 2025. "Qualitätsunsicherheit als Ursache von Marktversagen: Anpassungsmechanismen und Regulierungsbedarf (Überarbeitete Fassung) [Quality Uncertainty as a Source of Market Failure: Adjustment Mechanisms a," MPRA Paper 126777, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Nov 2025.
    6. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Pracejus, John W. & O'Guinn, Thomas C. & Olsen, G. Douglas, 2013. "When white space is more than “burning money”: Economic signaling meets visual commercial rhetoric," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 211-218.
    8. Jie Bai, 2016. "Melons as Lemons: Asymmetric Information, Consumer Learning and Seller Reputation," Natural Field Experiments 00540, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. Xiong, Ruoxuan & Pelger, Markus, 2023. "Large dimensional latent factor modeling with missing observations and applications to causal inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 271-301.
    10. Ajay Kalra & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 1998. "Response to Competitive Entry: A Rationale for Delayed Defensive Reaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 380-405.
    11. Stefano, Roberta di & Mellace, Giovanni, 2020. "The inclusive synthetic control method," Discussion Papers on Economics 14/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    12. Kim, Jeong-Yoo & Berg, Nathan, 2017. "Reexamining the Schmalensee effect," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-12.
    13. Victor Chernozhukov & Kaspar Wüthrich & Yinchu Zhu, 2021. "An Exact and Robust Conformal Inference Method for Counterfactual and Synthetic Controls," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 116(536), pages 1849-1864, October.
    14. Mark W. Nichols, 1998. "Advertising and Quality in the U.S. Market for Automobiles," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 922-939, April.
    15. Hikmet Gunay, 2014. "Waiting for Signaling Quality," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 364-386, October.
    16. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    17. Bruno Ferman, 2021. "On the Properties of the Synthetic Control Estimator with Many Periods and Many Controls," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 116(536), pages 1764-1772, October.
    18. Yu, Jisang & Ijaz, Arusha, 2023. "Recovering from Natural Disaster through Exports: The Case of 2010 Pakistan Flood and EU Tariff Waiver on Pakistan Textile Exports," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335710, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Causal Models for Longitudinal and Panel Data: A Survey," Papers 2311.15458, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    20. Fischer, Greg & Karlan, Dean S. & McConnell, Margaret & Raffler, Pia, "undated". "To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda," Center Discussion Papers 169540, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:globco:qt2rj4t2rh. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://escholarship.org/uc/igcc/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.