Radicalization is enforced by inserting ever-new layers that demote wavering ranks.

Evidence

This fluctuating hierarchy, with its constant addition of new layers and shifts in authority, is well known from secret control bodies, the secret police or espionage services, where new controls are always needed to control the controllers. In the prepower stage of the movements, total espionage is not yet possible; but the fluctuating hierarchy, similar to that of secret services, makes it possible, even without actual power, to degrade any rank or group that wavers or shows signs of decreasing radicalism by the mere insertion of a new more radical layer, hence driving the older group automatically in the direction of the front organization and away from the center of the movement. Thus, the Nazi elite formations were primarily inner-party organizations: the SA rose to the position of a superparty when the party appeared to lose in radicality and was then in turn and for similar reasons superseded by the SS. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 860

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the fluctuating hierarchy mechanism of totalitarian movements — a key toolkit concept.
• XREF: Connects to the movement-as-framework concept and anticipates how radicalization spirals in totalitarian movements. — connects to: Radical transformation always requires drawing political frontiers against an adversary. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 533