Social legitimacy of violence explains IRA versus RAF organizational and class differences

Evidence

To illustrate briefly differences in motivation, context, and status among contemporary terrorist organizations, one can compare the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the United Kingdom and Ireland to the Red Army Faction (RAF) and its successors in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Provisional IRA is the heir to a tradition of violent resistance to British rule, the “physical force” tradition that has its roots not only in Oliver Cromwell’s depredations but in the mythology of the French Revolution. Although the majority of the citizens of Ireland and Northern Ireland do not actively support the IRA, belonging to the IRA in the divided society of Northern Ireland is more socially acceptable than belonging to the RAF in West Germany, where memories of violence against the regime derive primarily from the paramilitary extremists of both right and left under the Weimar Republic. In West Germany neither religious nor national divisions legitimize violence against the state. Most West German terrorists, whose organizations emerged from student protest movements, are from the middle or uppermiddle classes; in contrast, members of the IRA are from working-class backgrounds. Whereas the aims of Irish Republicans focus sharply on creating a united and non-British Ireland, the vague and unrealistic goals of German terrorism center on the creation of an ill-defined socialist order. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4077

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing later: does social legitimacy of violence against the state reliably predict who joins such movements across other cases?
• SHARE: For someone working on Northern Ireland history or comparative political violence — the IRA-vs-RAF class and legitimacy contrast is a compact teachable comparison.
• XREF: connects to: Britain’s earlier refusal to call the IRA struggle a war protected civilian status — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1429