Anti-government rage: understanding, identifying and responding to the sovereign citizen movement in Australia

ABSTRACT

Sovereign citizens, who do not believe they are subject to law, have been identified as a risk for police and government officials as well as a potential terrorist threat. As such, while it is important to view radicalisation as multi-causal, some behavioural markers may indicate sovereign citizen inclinations and help to direct policy attention to the early stages of risk and radicalisation towards violence. This article seeks to identify sovereign ideology, social drivers and tactics to help to avert the potential consolidation and advance of vulnerabilities and risk factors under certain conditions. Further, it intends to build policy frameworks towards supporting individual resilience to extremist influence and the development of related prevention programs by evaluating whether CVE activity in Australia – especially if adopted from responses such as religious terrorism – is ‘fit for purpose’ in countering intricate anti-government extensions of extremism.

KEYWORDS:

• Sovereign citizens
• terrorism
• radicalisation
• resilience
• CVE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.