Answering only to legitimate laws : societal triggers towards the sovereign citizen movement in Canada
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Ren, Sihan
issued: 2024-08-21T15:21:42Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Sovereign citizens are known for their unique worldviews, but what causes one to subscribe to such ideology? Previous studies have identified the movement's historical roots of the movement in economic hardships and racism. This study contributes to existing scholarship by approaching the subject from the angle of political trust and consequently contextualizing the trust literature to the sovereign citizen movement. Correspondingly, this study theorizes that economic hardship, pre-disposed racism, and the location of residence induce one’s ideological affinity towards the sovereign citizen's movement. It proposes three corresponding hypotheses, which are tested using randomized survey experiments. It compares the differences in means between the control and the various treatment groups to estimate the average causal effect (ACE). It successfully rejects one null hypothesis: economic hardship is a meaningful inducer of ideological affinity to the movement, not racism. Additionally, location also appears to provide additional insights with strong reactions to treatments from suburbanites, but the overall relationship is not substantial. The study ends by discussing the implications of the results and identifying the study's limitations, mainly the bias due to unrepresentative samples.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88986
note: ANSWERING ONLY TO LEGITIMATE LAWS: SOCIETAL TRIGGERS TOWARDS THE SOVEREIGN CITIZEN MOVEMENT IN CANADA by Sihan Ren B.A. Honours, University of Toronto, 2023 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2024 © Sihan Ren, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Answering Only to Legitimate Laws: Societal Triggers Towards the Sovereign Citizen Movement in Canada submitted by Sihan Ren in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Examining Committee: Matthew Wright, Associate Professor, Political Science, UBC Supervisor Sophie Borwein, Assistant Professor, Political Science, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Sovereign citizens are known for their unique worldviews, but what causes one to subscribe to such ideology? Previous studies have identified the movement's historical roots of the movement in economic hardships and racism. This study contributes to existing scholarship by approaching the subject from the angle of political trust and consequently contextualizing the trust literature to the sovereign citizen movement. Correspondingly, this study theorizes that economic hardship, pre-disposed racism, and the location of residence induce one’s ideological affinity towards the sovereign citizen's movement. It proposes three corresponding hypotheses, which are tested using randomized survey experiments. It compares the differences in means between the control and the various treatment groups to estimate the average causal effect (ACE). It successfully rejects one null hypothesis: economic hardship is a meaningful inducer of ideological affinity to the movement, not racism. Additionally, location also appears to p…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0445117
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Wright, Matthew (Assistant professor of political science)
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88986