Research Desk: Radical Right Research

How masculinity explains the Radical Right gender gap, how QAnon support is explained by conspiratorial worldviews, and revisiting how the Christian Right built capacity to undo Roe v. Wade.

Highlights from recently published research and studies of the Radical Right including how masculinity explains the Radical Right gender gap, and that QAnon support is best explained by conspiratorial worldviews, dark triad personality traits, and a predisposition toward other nonnormative behavior. Also, revisiting research published in 2019 which examines how the Christian Right built capacity to undo Roe v. Wade state by state.

Organizational Research

• Playing the Long Game: How the Christian Right Built Capacity to Undo Roe State By State, Political Research Associates (Published in 2019)

  • “The Christian Right has evolved organizationally and ideologically. It has changed tactics. It has built unity across real divides among the rightwing evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and Mormons who make up most of its numbers. A key aspect of the Christian Right is that the movement operates less in silos than the progressive movement, and it is often the case that the same Christian Right organizations are opposed to reproductive rights, immigrant rights, LGBTQI rights, and other civil rights. The consolidation of right-wing power at the federal and state levels was built not only on GOP tactics but also on the Christian Right’s dynamism: its decades-long development of its political institutions, alliances, and theology.”

• Ammon's Army: Inside the Far-Right People's Rights Network, Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights

  • “The leadership of the People’s Rights network has remained hidden, locked away inside a new online platform away from public scrutiny, until now. Under the People’s Rights banner, Bundy has assembled a team of 153 “assistants” in sixteen states. This report, for the first time, names all 153 of those activists and examines their backgrounds–including extensive far-right activism by many area assistants. Though the national and state leadership is still dominated by men, this report also documents how People’s Rights has a majority of women in local leadership positions—a first for modern far-right networks.”

• Hidden Hate: How Instagram fails to act on 9 in 10 reports of misogyny in DMs, Center for Countering Digital Hate

  • “Instagram claim that they act on hate speech, including misogyny, homophobia, and racism; nudity or sexual activity; graphic violence; and threats of violence. But our research finds that Instagram systematically fails to enforce appropriate sanctions and remove those who break its rules. CCDH has conducted a series of Failure to Act reports over several years – on platforms’ failure to act on Covid-19 misinformation, identity-based hate, climate denial, and more. This report has one of the worst-ever failure rates of our reports. Instagram failed to act on 90% of abuse sent via DM to the women in this study. Further, Instagram failed to act on 9 in 10 violent threats over DM reported using its tools and failed to act on any image-based sexual abuse within 48 hours.”