Correlates of radical localism across American counties

ABSTRACT

Radical localism is a sociological phenomenon in the United States that prioritizes county interests over federal mandates. It often involves non-government actors, such as militias or armed movements, and government actors, such as elected officials. We seek to unearth the relationships between radical localism and the sociological conditions that may aggravate such extremist ideas. In this study, we examine the local conditions that may foster radical localism and extremist views. We hypothesize that radical localism is influenced by three factors: (1) the proportion of federally owned lands in a county; (2) the change in the percentage of white people in a county’s population; and (3) the degree of underrepresentation of a county’s population in state and federal legislatures. We test our hypotheses using data from U.S. counties that have experienced radical localism. Our findings support our hypotheses and reveal the growing sociological divisions within radical localism.

KEYWORDS:

• Radical localism
• constitutionalist sheriffs
• anti-federalism
• anti-government
• insurgency

JEL CLASSFICATION:

• Z00 (General)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We thank Headwater Economics for providing these data to us.

2. Available online: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/download-data/

3. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/download-data/

4. Available online: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf