How social movement organizations explicitly and implicitly promote deviant behavior: The case of the militia movement

Abstract

The literature on social movements and deviance has failed to recognize that social movement organizations also promote deviance in society. This oversight stems from a tendency in the dominant paradigm of social movement theory to normalize the activities of these movements by equating their activities with political behavior. Focusing on the modern militia movement, we discuss the explicit and implicit paths through which movements promote deviance and/or criminal behavior. Noting that the movement has both a “defensive” and an “offensive” wing, we find that they promote deviance both through their ideology, which legitimizes deviance, and through their organizational structures, which are unable to control either the actions of those who are part of the movement or the flow of movement-generated information.