Exploring the Intersection of Environmental Events and Domestic Political Violence in the United States

ABSTRACT

Increasing levels of extreme weather patterns and environmental deterioration pose pertinent threats to the availability of essential resources, such as food and water. Past research has found a positive association between climate change and the likelihood of internal conflicts, especially in developing countries. We argue that intensifying climate events can lead to an increase in the spread and intensity of both left and right-wing ideologically motivated violence in developed countries as well, specifically the United States. We also focus on how regional environmental characteristics might be correlated to the geographical distribution of domestic political violence. Our findings suggest that while both far-right and environmental violence are more prevalent during warmer seasons and extreme warming weather events, such as heat waves, political and demographic factors also need to be considered. We also found a strong linkage between man-made ecological damage, as opposed to natural disasters, and the prevalence of eco-violence incidents, especially in states that have a progressive-liberal political culture and high levels of ecological exploitation. We conclude with a brief discussion of findings and suggestions for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• political violence
• far-right violence
• eco-terrorism
• domestic political violence

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

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15. Paul M. Reeping and David Hemenway, “The Association between Weather and the Number of Daily Shootings in Chicago (2012–2016),” Injury Epidemiology 7, no. 1 (2020): 1–8. Hate crimes have also been shown to correlate with terrorism on the county level and therefore we can reasonably be concerned that should hot weather impact hate crimes, it may also impact activities of political violence, see Colleen E. Mills, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven M. Chermak, “Extreme Hatred: Revisiting the Hate Crime and Terrorism Relationship to Determine Whether they are ‘Close Cousins’ or ‘Distant Relatives,’” Crime & Delinquency 63, no. 10 (2017): 1191–223. This relationship also has a temporal pattern, see Kathleen Deloughery, Ryan D. King, and Victor Asal, “Close Cousins or Distant Relatives? The Relationship between Terrorism and Hate Crime,” Crime & Delinquency 58, no. 5 (2012): 663–88.

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18. Nella Van Dyke and Sarah A. Soule, “Structural Social Change and the Mobilizing Effect of Threat: Explaining Levels of Patriot and Militia Organizing in the United States,” Social Problems 49, no. 4 (2002): 497–520.

19. Arie Perliger, American Zealots: Inside Right-wing Domestic Terrorism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2020).

20. Dennis Mares, “Climate Change and Crime: Monthly Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies and Crime Rates in St. Louis, MO 1990–2009,” Crime, Law and Social Change 59, no. 2 (2013): 185–208.

21. Matthew M. Sweeney and Arie Perliger, “Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States,” Perspectives on Terrorism 12, no. 6 (2018): 52–71. The spontaneity of such attacks is also explored in research that examine situational crime prevention and explore presented opportunities that perhaps motivated offenders are more frequently capitalizing on thanks to warmer weather bringing out more potential targets. For more, see Ronald Victor Gemuseus Clarke and Graeme R. Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006).

22. David Card and Gordon B. Dahl, “Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior,” The quarterly journal of economics 126, no. 1 (2011): 103–43; Todd F. Heatherton and Roy F. Baumeister, “Self-Regulation Failure: Past, Present, and Future,” Psychological Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1996): 90–98.

23. Paul A. Bell and Robert A. Baron, “Aggression and Heat: The Mediating Role of Negative Affect 1,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 6, no. 1 (1976): 18–30.

24. Craig A. Anderson and Kathryn B. Anderson, “Violent Crime Rate Studies in Philosophical Context: A Destructive Testing Approach to Heat and Southern Culture of Violence Effects,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, no. 4 (1996): 740.

25. Bertjan Doosje, “Terrorism, Radicalization and De-Radicalization,” Current Opinion in Psychology 11 (2016): 79–84; John Horgan, “From Profiles to Pathways and Roots to Routes: Perspectives from Psychology on Radicalization into Terrorism,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 618, no. 1 (2008): 80–94; Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20, no. 3 (2008): 415–33; Jeff Victoroff, “The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 1 (2005): 3–42.

26. Donald Holbrook and John Horgan, “Terrorism and Ideology,” Perspectives on Terrorism 13, no. 6 (2019): 2–15; Graeme R. Newman and Michael J. Lynch, “From Feuding to Terrorism: the Ideology of Vengeance,” Contemporary Crises 11, no. 3 (1987): 223–42; Brian Burgoon, “On Welfare and Terror: Social Welfare Policies and Political-Economic Roots of Terrorism,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, no. 2 (2006): 176–203.

27. Jackson Cothren, “Geospatial and Temporal Patterns of Preparatory Conduct among American Terrorists,” International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 32, no. 1 (2008): 23–41; Gary LaFree and Bianca E. Bersani, “County‐Level Correlates of Terrorist Attacks in the United States,” Criminology & Public Policy 13, no. 3 (2014): 455–81.

28. While we expect these events to occur in high-resource areas, the dedicated base may not necessarily be local. Passionate activists travel long distances to participate and show their dedication to their cause, further highlighting the importance of spatial considerations for analyzing patterns of political violence, see Summer Jackson, Katie Ratcliff, and Brent L. Smith, “Spatial Analysis of US Terrorism Incidents.” (2017).

29. Cass Mudde, Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000); Hans-Georg Betz, “Politics of Resentment: Right-Wing Radicalism in West Germany,” Comparative Politics 23 (1990): 15–60; Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994); Betty A. Dobratz and Stephanie L. Shanks-Meile, The White Separatist Movement in the United States: “White Power, White Pride!” (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

30. Arie Perliger, Challengers from the Sidelines (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2012); Matthew M. Sweeney and Arie Perliger, “Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States,” Perspectives on Terrorism 12, no. 6 (2018): 52–71; Arie Perliger, American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2020).

31. M. Keith Woodhouse, The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018); David Pepper, Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction (London, UK: Psychology Press, 1996); Douglas Torgerson, “Strategy and Ideology in Environmentalism: A Decentered Approach to Sustainability,” Industrial & Environmental Crisis Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1994): 295–321.

32. See for example Carson, 2012.

33. Steven M. Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich, and Michael Suttmoeller, “The Organizational Dynamics of Far‐Right Hate Groups in the United States: Comparing Violent to Non‐Violent Organizations,” Final Report to Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security College Park MD: START, December 2011; Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, and Joseph Simone Jr. “Surveying American state Police Agencies about Terrorism Threats, Terrorism Sources, and Terrorism Definitions,” Terrorism and Political Violence 21, no. 3 (2009): 450–75. This issue has also been in the forefront of American news media and legislative discourse, see Neil Macfarquhar, “As Domestic Terrorists Outpace Jihadists, New U.S. Law is Debated,” New York Times, 25 February 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/us/domestic-terrorism-laws.html; Willem Marx, “Jihadist Plots Used to Be U.S. and Europe’s Biggest Terrorist Threat. Now It’s the Far Right.” NBC, July 27, 2020, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jihadist-plots-used-be-u-s-europe-s-biggest-terrorist-n1234840.

34. For additional information, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/national-centers-environmental-information.

35. For additional information https://www.globalchange.gov/about.

36. G. Brooke Anderson and Michelle L. Bell, “Heat Waves in the United States: Mortality Risk during Heat Waves and Effect Modification by Heat Wave Characteristics in 43 US Communities,” Environmental Health Perspectives 119, no. 2 (2011): 210–18; Gerald A. Meehl and Claudia Tebaldi, “More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st Century,” Science 305, no. 5686 (2004): 994–97; Andrew J. Grundstein, Craig Ramseyer, Fang Zhao, Jordan L. Pesses, Pete Akers, Aneela Qureshi, Laura Becker, John A. Knox, and Myron Petro, “A Retrospective Analysis of American Football Hyperthermia Deaths in the United States,” International Journal of Biometeorology 56, no. 1 (2012): 11–20.

37. For additional Information, https://www.fema.gov/disasters/how-declared, https://www.fema.gov/disasters/disaster-declarations and https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/us-heat-waves.

38. For additional Information, https://www.globalforestwatch.org/about/.

39. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States,” November 23, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/poll/247016/conservatives-greatly-outnumber-liberals-states.aspx.

40. Arie Perliger, American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2020).

41. Matthew M. Sweeney and Arie Perliger, “Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States,” Perspectives on Terrorism 12, no. 6 (2018): 52–71.

42. Joshua D. Freilich, “Investigating the Applicability of Macro-Level Criminology Theory to Terrorism: A County-Level Analysis,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 31, no. 3 (2015): 383–411; Jeff Gruenewald, Patterns of American Terrorism (New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 2018); Christopher Hewitt, Understanding Terrorism in America (New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge, 2003); Brent L. Smith, Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994); Jennifer J. Webb and Susan L. Cutter, “The Geography of US Terrorist Incidents, 1970–2004,” Terrorism and Political Violence 21, no. 3 (2009): 428–49. More generally, patterns of far-right hate crimes have also been established to differ by state, see David C. Nice, “Abortion Clinic Bombings as Political Violence,” American Journal of Political Science 32, no. 1 (1988): 178–95. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2111316 (accessed 5 April 2021); Nella Van Dyke, Sarah A. Soule, and Rebecca Widom, “The Politics of Hate: Explaining Variation in the Incidence of Anti-Gay Hate Crime,” Research in Political Sociology 9 (2001): 35–58.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arie Perliger

Dr. Arie Perliger is a Professor and the director of the graduate program in security studies at the School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Perliger was engaged in an extensive study of issues related to terrorism and political violence, extremism of the far right in Israel, Europe, and the U.S., Middle Eastern Politics, and the applicability of Social Network Analysis to the study of political violence. His studies appeared in nine books and monographs and in numerous articles and book chapters and were cited in more than 1900 academic texts.

Mengyan Liu

Ms. Mengyan Liu is a doctoral teaching fellow in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on hate crimes, political violence and the policy responses to such threats.