Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Sociology (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Sociology and Criminal Justice

Advisor/Mentor

Christopher A. Shields

Committee Member

Brent L. Smith

Second Committee Member

Jeffery A. Gruenewald

Third Committee Member

Casey T. Harris

Keywords

Social sciences, Anti-government, Anti-tax, Extremism, Far-right, Sovereign citizen movement, Terrorism

Abstract

To date little to no empirical research has been conducted on the Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) and how it fits into the broader far-right domestic terrorist movement. The main focus of this study is to determine if there is a significant difference between the SCM and the far-right in their demographic composition, trial strategies, and trial behaviors and whether the SCM should be grouped together with the broader far-right during analysis. Using the American Terrorism Study (ATS), I coded 97 federal court cases involving sovereign citizen defendants (N=150) and ran basic frequencies on demographic and trial behavior variables on the SCM defendants and compared them to the non-sovereign citizen far-right defendants (N=382) in the ATS; the two groups were different at every level. I then ran bivariate analysis to determine the significance in the differences between the two groups. Results showed that all of the differences between the two groups were significant in relation to demographics, how sovereign citizens behave during trial, and how the government prosecutes sovereign citizen defendants. In conclusion, the SCM is significantly, and substantially, different and should be studied separately from the broader far-right when conducting future research.

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