Digitally Mediated Spillover, Radicalization, and Resistance


Adam Burston, University of California, Santa Barbara

What distinguishes social movement organizations (SMOs) that radicalize from those that do not? Social scientists have not addressed this question due to a dearth of comparative studies containing radicalized and non-radicalized organizations. I intervene with a multi-site ethnography of College Conservatives for Freedom and Liberty, a university-based youth organization with chapters throughout the U.S. One of my field sites underwent a process of radicalization, transitioning from moderate to extremist, whereas my other two sites underwent a process that I term resistance in which they rejected internal efforts to radicalize and recommitted to moderate ideology and tactics. My research makes three contributions. First, on university campuses, radicalization and resistance processes are preceded by “digitally mediated spillover,” or an influx of recruits who participated in extreme digital movements like the Manosphere and the Alt-Right. Second, although radicalization and resistance/recommitment produce different outcomes, their initial phases are characterized by environmental and organizational incentives to radicalize, contestations over leadership, collective identity formation, and organizational reform. Third, I find that leadership plays a determinative role in radicalization and resistance/recommitment. My research contributes to important theoretical debates in the study of radicalization and offers an empirical framework for policymakers to reduce the spread of extremism.

This paper will be presented at the following session: