PREPRINT: Life Events and Change in Support for Political Violence in the United States
Findings from a 2023 Nationally Representative Survey
About the Paper
IN TWO SENTENCES
In 2023, few life events were associated with changes in support for political violence for the entire population. However, there are important subset findings.
FINDINGS IN BRIEF
- Support for political violence decreased for 19.9% of respondents, increased for 14.2%, and remained unchanged for 65.9%.
- "Things improved for me financially" was associated with decreased support for political violence.
- "I gave up on politics" was associated with increased support for political violence.
- Those who reported that violence was usually or always justified for at least 1 political objective in 2022 had no events associated with change in support in 2023.
- Among those who strongly approved of specified violent extremist organizations or movements in 2022, "my political beliefs changed a lot" was associated with a large decrease in support for political violence in 2023.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
In this cohort, few life events were associated with changes in support for political violence across the entire population, but there were important subset findings. The findings support interventions to improve measures of economic well-being across the population and to encourage belief change among extremists as political violence prevention measures.
METHODS
Findings are from Wave 2 of a nationally representative annual cohort survey, conducted online May 18-June 8, 2023. Participants were members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. There were 9,385 respondents for this analysis; the completion rate among those eligible to participate was 84.2%. Our principal outcomes are adjusted mean differences in change scores from 2022 to 2023 between individuals experiencing and not experiencing the 18 life events.