Government repression can push fringe individuals into violent opposition by blocking legitimate paths

Evidence

Both Böllinger and Knutson agree that the government often plays a critical role in pushing certain individuals into violent opposition. Government surveillance or persecution were factors in closing off the path to a positive identity for Busic, who encountered suspicious police in Yugoslavia, Austria, and the United States. In West Germany people who were only on the fringes of radical movements found their way back blocked by government records that marked them as sympathizers. Böllinger found, for example, that many of his interviewees had been harassed or, in one case, jailed for quite minor offenses. In the Basque region of Spain, in the Franco era, even cultural activities had to be clandestine because of government persecution. In the 19th century, the Russian government’s repression of nonviolent reformist activities was a factor in convincing a minority of activists that terrorism was their only mode of self-expression. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4129

Categorization

• SEED: The Russia case — repression of nonviolent reformists radicalizing a minority into terrorism — is a strong counterintuitive parallel for contemporary counterterrorism policy debates.
• XREF: connects to: Armed non-state groups emerge to replace states that abandon caretaking for pure repression — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 652; Crackdowns traumatize protesters so deeply that false alarms trigger terror — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 534; Excluded masses may revolt violently against acceleration society — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 850 (+7 more)