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Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks

What explains popular support for political violence in the contemporary United States, particularly the anti-institutional mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021? Recent scholarship gives reason to suspect that a constellation of beliefs known as “Christian nationalism” may be associate...

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Autores principales: Armaly, Miles T., Buckley, David T., Enders, Adam M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8724742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35001995
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y
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author Armaly, Miles T.
Buckley, David T.
Enders, Adam M.
author_facet Armaly, Miles T.
Buckley, David T.
Enders, Adam M.
author_sort Armaly, Miles T.
collection PubMed
description What explains popular support for political violence in the contemporary United States, particularly the anti-institutional mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021? Recent scholarship gives reason to suspect that a constellation of beliefs known as “Christian nationalism” may be associated with support for such violence. We build on this work, arguing that religious ideologies like Christian nationalism should be associated with support for violence, conditional on several individual characteristics that can be inflamed by elite cues. We turn to three such factors long-studied by scholars of political violence: perceived victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identities, and support for conspiratorial information sources. Each can be exacerbated by elite cues, thus translating individual beliefs in Christian nationalism into support for political violence. We test this approach with original survey data collected in the wake of the Capitol attacks. We find that all the identified factors are positively related to each other and support for the Capitol riot; moreover, the relationship between Christian nationalism and support for political violence is sharply conditioned by white identity, perceived victimhood, and support for the QAnon movement. These results suggest that religion’s role in contemporary right-wing violence is embedded with non-religious factors that deserve further scholarly attention in making sense of support for political violence. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y.
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spelling pubmed-87247422022-01-04 Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks Armaly, Miles T. Buckley, David T. Enders, Adam M. Polit Behav Original Paper What explains popular support for political violence in the contemporary United States, particularly the anti-institutional mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021? Recent scholarship gives reason to suspect that a constellation of beliefs known as “Christian nationalism” may be associated with support for such violence. We build on this work, arguing that religious ideologies like Christian nationalism should be associated with support for violence, conditional on several individual characteristics that can be inflamed by elite cues. We turn to three such factors long-studied by scholars of political violence: perceived victimhood, reinforcing racial and religious identities, and support for conspiratorial information sources. Each can be exacerbated by elite cues, thus translating individual beliefs in Christian nationalism into support for political violence. We test this approach with original survey data collected in the wake of the Capitol attacks. We find that all the identified factors are positively related to each other and support for the Capitol riot; moreover, the relationship between Christian nationalism and support for political violence is sharply conditioned by white identity, perceived victimhood, and support for the QAnon movement. These results suggest that religion’s role in contemporary right-wing violence is embedded with non-religious factors that deserve further scholarly attention in making sense of support for political violence. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y. Springer US 2022-01-04 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8724742/ /pubmed/35001995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Armaly, Miles T.
Buckley, David T.
Enders, Adam M.
Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title_full Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title_fullStr Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title_full_unstemmed Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title_short Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks
title_sort christian nationalism and political violence: victimhood, racial identity, conspiracy, and support for the capitol attacks
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8724742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35001995
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y
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