Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Ren, Sihan
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
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.
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 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. iv Lay Summary Sovereign citizens believe themselves exempt from laws that do not conform to their legal interpretations, but what causes one to affiliate with this ideology? Using survey experiments of a nationally representative sample of Canadians, this study finds that economic hardship, particularly economic crises, increases one’s willingness to join the movement given appropriate exposure to the ideology. However, individual-level characteristics, such as racism and where one lives, have no statistically significant effects. Overall, this study approaches the question from the perspective of political trust, providing additional insights for future research. v Preface This thesis is built onto the existing project initiated in POLI574 on surveys, which serves as the foundation for this thesis with respect to data and overall findings. I was the sole author of this thesis under the supervision of Professor Wright and conducted all analyses on my own. This thesis received ethics approval with its use of surveys as its main method, registered under UBC BREB Ethics Number H20-00476. vi Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................. iv Preface ........................................................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures............................................................................................................................ vii 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 2. Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Economics .................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Race ............................................................................................................................. 6 2.3 On Populism ................................................................................................................ 7 2.4 Combining the Two Perspectives: Conspiracy Theories. ................................................ 8 2.5 Location ....................................................................................................................... 9 3. Theory ............................................................................................................................... 11 4. Method ............................................................................................................................... 17 5. Results ............................................................................................................................... 21 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 28 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 32 Consulted Reference .................................................................................................................. 40 Appendix 1: Survey Questions .................................................................................................... 41 Appendix 2: Economic Treatment .............................................................................................. 44 Appendix 3: Race Treatment ...................................................................................................... 45 vii List of Figures Figure 1 - Comparing the Control and Treatment Across Groups ………………………… 23 Figure 2 - Economic Treatment Across Different Residence Locations …………………... 25 Figure 3 - Race Treatment Across Different Residence Locations ………………………… 26 1 1. Introduction Sovereign citizens are a unique social movement, particularly in North America, because they are well-known to answer only to laws according to their interpretation (Turner). Over recent years, the movement, for its unconventional legal views, has received increasing attention from the public, demonstrated by media coverage of shows such as Court Cam, where they are often met with heavy legal consequences. Despite their often-amusing rhetoric that laws, such as needing a license to drive, do not apply to them derived from pseudo-legal claims, a more profound question remains surrounding the psychological motivation behind one’s belief in this ideological framework, especially knowing that legal consequences are to follow against them. Specifically, what causes one to subscribe to such an ideology when most rhetoric can be easily decerned as nefarious? This study aims to provide a preliminary answer to this question and generate meaningful pilot results for future research. As the sovereign citizen movement becomes ever more publicized, this study believes it is necessary to discuss such topics – predominantly occupied by criminologists at this moment – from the perspective of Canadian political science. This study does not develop new theories but aims to test the findings of previous ones using quantitative methods to examine the relevancy of these previous claims today. Furthermore, the study approaches the issues differently by seeing them as a problem of political trust: the sovereign citizen ideology is an extreme epitome of the ever-decreasing political trust among the general population within Western societies, and this study believes that understanding why such decrease persists is essential, just as what previous studies have done. Previous studies have identified the movement's historical roots in economic hardships and racism. Correspondingly, this study develops that economic hardship and pre-disposed 2 racism act as societal treatments that induce one’s ideological affinity towards the sovereign citizen's movement and correspondingly proposes two hypotheses. Additionally, this study proposes a third hypothesis, which is that one’s location of residence also contributes to this ideological affinity. This study departs from the existing literature because it uses randomized survey experiments to test these hypotheses. It compares the differences in means between the control and the various treatment groups to estimate the average causal effect (ACE) and successfully rejects one null hypothesis: economic hardship, epitomized by sudden economic crises, as a treatment, is a meaningful inducer of ideological affinity to the movement, but not racism and location. The study ends by discussing the implications of the results and identifying the study's limitations, namely the bias due to unrepresentative samples. This paper is structured as follows. It begins with a literature review and the study’s theory. It then proposes two hypotheses and outlines the methods it uses. It presents and discusses the implications of the results, including speculations and explanations of results unaccounted by the theory. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the study's limitations and provides directions for future research. 3 2. Literature Review Previous studies have provided two directions, historical and analytical, for exploring the roots of the sovereign citizens’ movement. The former, written mainly by criminologists, features a detailed account of the movement's historical progression. The latter—which is also the focus of this study—focuses on political trust, institutional legitimacy, and law compliance, which sit at the centre of the sovereign citizen ideology. Previous studies have sketched a coherent picture of the history of the sovereign citizen movement. Various studies, including Hodge (2019) and Sarteschi (2021), among others, trace the root of the movement to a variety of economic mishappening from the past to the present day. These include the 2008 Financial Crisis (Hodge 2019), the farming crisis in the 1950s (Kent 2015), and tax evaders starting in the 1950s (Sarteschi 2021), where the underlining argument proposed by these findings above, in essence, is that economic conditions trigger people to believe in pseudo-legal rhetoric as a response to their realities. Moreover, these studies show that such conditional triggers often involve a “shock” or trigger event (such as financial crises), representing structural changes within the economy. However, more studies also find the sovereign citizen movement to have a racist root in tracing its historical antecedents. Namely, numerous studies (Baldino and Lucas 2017 (p.247), Bell and Naval Postgraduate School Monterey United States 2016) have found the sovereign citizen movement deeply rooted in racism, as one of its predecessors, the “Posse Comitatus,” is an anti-Semitic organization. Though the exact social trigger for someone to believe in the sovereign citizen ideology is less clear than the economic argument, these studies have traced the movement to something this study can hypothesize and test. Namely, these study shows that the 4 sovereign citizen movement inherits from its racist past, and it is reasonable to assume that such a root is reflected in the movement today. However, a more exciting aspect revolves around political trust, to which previous studies have established a relationship between it and law compliance. This serves as the basis of this study’s theory. In this case, political trust – defined in the broadest sense – serves as the focus of this study and, subsequently, this literature review. The most focus among these studies is Marien and Hooghe (2011), concluding a positive relationship between political trust and law compliance, that low levels of political trust delegitimize institutions, rendering their laws illegitimate, thus vindicating one’s choice of note following them. Other studies have reached similar results for narrower bodies of illegal activities, such as tax evasion and compliance. (Antinyan et al. 2020, Batrancea et al. 2019, Hammar et al. 2009). Others focus on more general compliances, as Marien and Hooghe (2011) do (Habibov et al. 2018; Marien and Werner 2019) and reach similar conclusions. This relationship is further tested by a burgeoning stream of work focusing on COVID-19, where similar results are reached in comparison to pre-COVID studies, where higher levels of political trust result in higher compliance with COVID-19 regulations (Badman et al. 2022; Bargain and Aminjonov 2020; Pak et al. 2021; Seyd and Bu 2022). Although originating from different contexts and temporal backgrounds, the overarching conclusion is a positive relationship between legal compliance and political trust, whether such trust is vested in institutions or politicians. Marien and Hooghe’s (2011) link between political trust and institutional legitimacy also finds support in other studies. These additional studies mainly focus on policing and finding a positive relationship between political trust and the legitimacies of policing (Hough et al. 2012). 5 With the primary link between political trust and law compliance established, it is now possible, after combining studies from both the historical and analytical streams, to focus on what effects the root causes of the effects of political trust. Studies have identified two main aspects: economics and race. 2.1 Economics The economic aspect revolves around two key areas: macroeconomic performance and economic inequality. Though conceptually distinct, they can be categorized as the combined economic force affecting political trust. Studies have reached a broad consensus regarding macroeconomic performance. Specifically, while studies differ in their descriptions of the mechanisms and intermediaries (Torcal 2014) that eventually lead economic performance to affect political trust, the overarching finding is mainly similar: poor macroeconomic performance negatively affects political trust. Furthermore, this relationship operates within the domestic context, with little cross-country leakages, as Van der Meer (2018) argues that longitudinal comparisons by citizens on economic performance, especially against eras with better perceived economic performance, affect political trust; in other words, bad economic performance causes a decrease in trust. Various studies corroborate this conclusion, focusing on the manifestations of poor economic performances, including economic crises (Gallie 2013; Kroknes et al. 2015; Cordero and Simón 2015; Van Erkel and Van der Meer 2016; Walti 2012) and unemployment (Roth et al. 2011; Giustozzi and Gangl 2021; Hooghe and Okolikj 2020; Foster and Frieden 2017); these studies all present a positive relationship – or negative relationship if examining unemployment – between economic performance and/or their physical manifestations and political trust, where poor economic performance, manifested through economic crises and turmoil, results in lower 6 political trust and vice versa with minimum preconditions. However, as this study focuses on Canada alone, such preconditions, which often involve region-specific characteristics (as many are conducted in Europe), are largely irrelevant. Although a minority of studies have come to contradict the abovementioned results, such as Bauer (2018) and Lee et al. (2020) in the Asian context, disputing the existence of the relationship, this is overshadowed by the large majority of the studies that have concluded otherwise. The second aspect, income equality, including self-perceived economic inequality, has a broadly agreed-upon relationship with political trust, as established by previous studies. Like economic performance, while there are more minor debates surrounding intermediaries and mechanisms that inequality functions through against political trust (Jin et al. 2024), the overall argument stands at a negative relationship between economic inequality and political trust, as characterized by numerous studies (Zmerli and Castillo 2015; Goubin and Hooghe 2020; Bobzien 2023; Bienstman et al. 2024). This conclusion extends beyond the Western sphere but also to other well-recognized democracies, such as South Korea (Chi et al. 2013) but disputed by later studies (Chi and Kwon 2016). While there are studies in the European context that contradict the previously mentioned results (Boda and Medve-Bálint 2014), they are country-specific and overly sparse to be considered a formidable force within this academic context. Therefore, the overall scholarly agreement is that economic inequality, including self-perceived ones, is positively related to political trust. 2.2 Race By race in this context, this study refers to racism. However, despite a wealth of studies on racial minorities and political trust (Wilkes 2015; Rosenthal 2021; Hetherington and Globetti 2002; Avery 2000), few have tested the relationship between racism against domestic racial 7 minorities (e.g., African Americans or the Indigenous people in Canada) and political trust. Specifically, this refers to examining this relationship from the perspective of the perpetrator, not the victim. The only major study conducted is Filindra and Buyuker (2022), which show a direct and adverse relationship between racism and political trust. However, given the recency of the study, the literature is still in development. Despite this, however, studies in migration, a related field, have provided a wealth of literature on this topic, specifically pertinent to what was described as missing above. Similar to the literature on economics, this is primarily concentrated within the European context. McLaren (2019), for example, posits a negative relationship between exclusionary views against immigrants and political trust within immigrant-welcoming countries. Other studies have reached similar results in European and American contexts (Simon 2024; MacDonald 2021; MacDonald and Cornacchione 2023; Jeannet 2020) with, however, requirement over societal conditions for the relationship to exist, albeit they differ in the exact condition: for most, the precondition is an immigrant-welcoming country, whereas others have included pre-disposed anti-immigrant attitudes. What these studies show, then, is that the relationship does not exist without the appropriate societal context. 2.3 On Populism Additionally, the relationship between racism and a related field to the sovereign citizen ideology far-right populism, exists.1 Populism, with its emblematic “people vs. elites” mentality at its core (Citrin and Stoker 2018), resembles a more friendly and less conspiratorial form of sovereign citizen ideology. Though this analogy only works to an extent, it is nevertheless 1 The sovereign citizen ideology can theoretically happen on the far left (analogy to far-left populism). However, it is far more frequently referenced in the far-right context. 8 interesting to explore this direction, to which recent literature has provided in-depth insights. Rebechi and Rohde (2022) note a strong correlation between anti-White discrimination and support for the Republican party, whose leaders are increasingly becoming populist. This conclusion aligns with earlier works, including Durrheim et al. (2017), on racist discourses’ arousing effects on right-wing populism. What is more interesting, however, is the much larger literature on economics and support for far-right populism. Schraff and Pontusson (2023), for instance, finds a positive relationship between economic disparities vis-à-vis the richest regions and support for far-right populists in the European Union. This echoes previous studies in the Euro-American contexts, including Ferguson et al. (2016). 2.4 Combining the Two Perspectives: Conspiracy Theories. Having explored both the sovereign citizen movement and the existing literature on political trust, it is also worthwhile to explore the relationship between sovereign citizen ideology and political trust. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, current academia lacks direct inquiry into the matter but possesses rich literature on the effects of conspiracy theories on political trust. The current scholarly consensus is a negative relationship between one’s belief in conspiracy theories – the sovereign citizen ideology being one of them – and its degree of political trust. For instance, Mari et al. (2021) show that by providing an easy answer to complex issues, conspiracy theories are negatively associated with political trust. Later studies, including Schlipphak et al. (2022), reached a similar conclusion using generic conspiracy theories. Similar to the literature on economics and political trust, recent literature, especially in the European context, has also scrutinized the relationship against the context of COVID-19 and produced 9 similar results (Massou et al. 2023; Mancosu et al. 2022; Knobel et al. 2022). To summarize, conspiracy theories, to which the sovereign citizen ideology belongs, negatively impact political trust. 2.5 Location Previous studies have established a relationship between locations of residence and political trust. However, the relationship remains contested, as studies have argued for and against it. Location and geography have long been the focus of election and populism-related studies. Previous studies have noted a general rural-urban divide regarding electoral preferences (Walks 2004; Scala and Johnson 2017; Jacob and Munis 2023) and populist surges (Gordon 2018; Broz et al. 2021). Regardless of their focus, however, a general trend is that rural areas starkly contrast the inner cities in terms of political preferences and political landscape. Most studies focus on the most apparent difference between urban and rural areas. Mitsch et al. (2021), for instance, argue that urban areas exhibit a higher level of political trust than rural areas. Studies such as Stroppe (2023) conclude similar results by demonstrating a positive relationship between political trust and accessibility to public services. However, numerous studies have argued otherwise. McKay et al. (2023) noted no significant differences in political trust between rural and urban areas conditioned upon high levels of economic development. Similar results have been reached but by conditioning on different attributes, including place-based identities (Zumbrunn 2024). Stein et al. (2021) find a difference in political trust between the political heartlands and hinterlands instead of the traditional urban-rural divide. Others, including Elfversson et al. (2024), directly contradict Mitsch et al. (2021) and Stroppe (2023) by finding the opposite effects in Kenya. McKay et al. (2021) demonstrate two distinct routes of low political trust in rural areas, where both political marginalization and poor economic performance 10 can result in the same observation. These studies show a relatively new field of study with significant points of contention. However, what one can conclude from these studies is that political trust, in one way or another, is related to geography. 11 3. Theory Having done a brief overview of the literature so far, this study builds atop the previous findings to hypothesize the following, H1: Worse economic well-being, manifested by economic crises, on average, induces ideological affinity for the sovereign citizen ideology, given exposure to the ideology in the immediate term. H2: Pre-disposed racism, on average, induces ideological affinity for the sovereign citizen ideology if exposed to it. H3: Greater distance from the metropolis induces ideological affinity for the sovereign citizen ideology, given exposure to the ideology. This study uses a lax definition of “affinity.” Due to the constant negative media coverage of the sovereign citizens' movement, this study equates “affinity” to non-confrontational attitudes by respondents, where, at the minimum, respondents do not exhibit outright rejection of the sovereign citizen ideology. In this sense, this study does not theorize what causes one to become a sovereign citizen, but the societal triggers that cause one to gravitate towards the ideology vis-à-vis those unexposed to these triggers. To theorize the former requires a stricter definition, which this study is reluctant to make to reduce analytical difficulty. Consequently, these hypotheses focus on the existence of effects instead of their magnitude, though within-treatment comparisons of magnitudes are still meaningful. In other words, economic hardship and racism serve as the “shock” that induces one to think and feel closer to the sovereign citizen ideology. However, as the literature review entails, such societal or individual characteristics only capture half of the picture. Exposure to conspiracy theories, this study argues, is equally vital in indoctrinating one into accepting the sovereign citizen ideology, 12 as its theoretical framework, including its pseudo-legal and pseudo-historical worldviews, is significantly more complex than one’s perceived de-legitimation of laws described by Marien and Hooghe (2011). Conspiracy theories, as the literature review entails, also decrease political trust. However, to pinpoint the specific conspiracy framework one becomes associated with, the exposure of such theories becomes necessary. This theoretical setup avoids ambiguities, as observationally, the sovereign citizen ideology could be exhibiting similar behaviours compared to other extremist ideologies, such as white supremacists. Additionally, it would be counterintuitive for individuals to develop a coherent and complex ideological framework independently, given one-time societal shocks. While this is possible, this study argues that such a possibility is small enough to be ignored. The relationship can be illustrated as three independent forces2 acting on the dependent variable, one’s ideological affinity with the sovereign citizen movement. This process of gradual radicalization through external influence is also in line with existing literature on the subject, where gradual and increasing engagement with conspiracy theories leads to eventual radicalization (Taplin et al., 2023; Phadke et al., 2022) From the literature review, it is also clear that the sovereign citizen ideology, by its observable characteristics, can be primarily associated with the issue of political trust. In other words, while not denying the multifaceted nature of the sovereign citizen movement, this study, under this context, finds justification for categorizing the movement as a political trust3 problem. With this assertion established, this study sees its purpose as testing the assertions and findings by previous studies, namely Marien and Hooghe (2011) and Kroknes et al. (2015), 2 This is theorized by this study to be so. Furthermore, the setup of this study through a randomized survey experiment ensure that characteristics are not confounding by design. 3 Political trust, in this context, is defined in the broadest way possible. The term refers to one’s trust in political institutions, political actors, and anything else that is closely related to politics. 13 among others, focusing on economics. It also furthers the work established by Filindra and Buyuker (2022) by focusing on racist attitudes and political trust. It is built on the works by McLaren (2019) and Simon (2024), among others. Lastly, this study offers a quantitative examination of the assertions made by those works within the historical stream, as none have tested their conclusions quantitatively. In addition, this study’s context is similarly important before continuing onto its hypotheses. As observed within the literature review, current works possess a Eurocentric bias in the literal sense. Though this has been somewhat mediated by burgeoning works from the Asian and American context, relatively few works on political trust have investigated Northern America, especially Canada. Although this is understandable, given that compared to North America, Europe has been embroiled with right-wing forces combined with economic crises and a constant struggle with immigration since the 1990s, as characterized by politicians such as Pim Fortuyn. However, this does not imply that European findings equally apply to the Northern American context. Therefore, in addition to testing previously established claims, this study raises its stakes by testing them in the Canadian context, which, as recent literature shows, is somewhat absent. First, greater economic dissatisfaction, mainly through the vehicle of economic crises, induces ideological affinity to the sovereign citizen movement because of the shift of frustration from economic hardship on an individual level toward authorities. In other words, the frustration translates into a disillusionment against the authorities’ legitimacy. This follows the framework established by Marien and Hooghe (2011) and Kroknes et al. (2015), where the political distrust induced by economic downturns translates into incompliance. This also follows the theory established by studies focusing on the movement, such as Hodge (2019). Observationally, this 14 study sees that the sense of disillusionment by individuals becomes reflected in the refusal to follow laws and regulations one deems illegitimate. Therefore, intensive economic hardships – one that resembles the 2008 Financial Crisis or COVID-19 – should induce a liking or at least non-enmities towards the movement, as it is a viable response by individuals against a macro-level catastrophe that affects themselves, where, as previous studies observe, these hardships are the critical events that give birth to the disillusionments and frustrations which feed into their understanding of the sovereign citizen ideology. Second, a more significant personal association with racism will induce ideological affinity for the sovereign citizen movement. This is because, like H1, the sovereign citizen movement acts as a viable response for individuals whose racist views are not acceptable today. Overt expressions of racism, such as those performed by neo-Nazis, have been mainly relegated to the periphery of society as overt racism becomes socially unacceptable, where governments today see addressing systematic racism – such as towards the Indigenous population in Canada – as a priority in policymaking. Indeed, studies including Rousis et al. (2020) find a high prevalence of the “loss of significance” rhetoric being used among right-wing organizations, such as neo-Nazis. Similarly, this is built on the framework of Filindra and Buyuker (2022), where political distrust, fueled by racism, turns into the refusal to obey laws. People with extreme racist views, this study argues, will find the government illegitimate, as it fails to deliver a perfect white society envisioned by such individuals. The gravitation towards the sovereign citizen movement is thus a viable means for the maintenance of such racist ideologies that are not tolerated by mainstream public discourse. As mentioned above, both H1 and H2 involve a simultaneous exposure of the sovereign citizen ideology: not following laws is only a subset of the entire sovereign citizen ideology, 15 albeit it is the most overt exhibition. The methods will reflect this consideration, as described in later sections. To summarize, though H1 and H2 are distinct from each other, they essentially function through the exact mechanism, where external or internal triggers translate into disillusionment and frustration towards the government for what it does or represents. Observationally, this has become an increasing ideological affinity towards the sovereign citizens movement. H3, on the other hand, is different. Rather than a shock, it theorizes that respondents residing in different areas will respond to the shocks differently. This is intuitive from the literature reviews and real-world observations, including the slow but constant decline of the American Midwest associated with the rapid rise of right-wing populism compared to the rest of the country. Therefore, when encountering a societal trigger, such as an economic crisis, it is logical to theorize that predisposed social backgrounds – location being an important one – will impact how respondents react to the shocks. In other words, this is another illustration of the differences between the haves and have-nots. Given the current literature, it is theorized that the further away a respondent is from the cities, the more positively the respondents will affiliate themselves with the sovereign citizen ideology. This reflects the two mechanisms McKay et al. (2021) discuss, where those away from the cities are politically more marginalized and potentially impoverished. This translates into lower political trust, which increases affinity to the sovereign citizen ideology upon exposure to conspiracy theories. Furthermore, all three hypotheses can be theorized by their “directions,” which are the source of the treatment. Compared to H1, the sources of H2 and H3 are endogenous “shocks” that originate from the respondent, whether that is the respondents' pre-disposed racism against others or their residence locations. H1, however, is exogenous: one cannot have a pre-disposed 16 economic crisis, meaning that, unlike H2 and H3, H1 is a genuine “shock” that affects everyone universally regardless of background. Therefore, testing all three hypotheses sheds additional light on the powers of external versus internal shocks/characteristics that “inspire” one’s affinity with the sovereign citizen movement. 17 4. Method This study resorts to quantitative methods, using randomized survey experiments to test these two hypotheses. It splits the respondents into three groups: control, economic, and racial. However, the economic and racial overlap, as the economic treatments are assigned two racial characteristics: black or white. In this sense, the race hypothesis is examined twice within this study. All three groups are given the same question but with different primer vignettes. The questions and their vignettes, replicated in Appendix 1, aim to capture the respondents’ responses to the economic and racial triggers theorized by this study. All groups are asked about their attitudes towards whether people should only answer to laws and regulations they see as legitimate – a defining characteristic of the sovereign citizens movement. Due to the negative connotations now associated with the sovereign citizens' movement through media coverage, this study avoids explicitly mentioning the term “sovereign citizen,” but, as shown in Appendix 1, indirectly guides respondents to think about such groups in the hope of preventing prima facie judgements become receiving the treatment, where people provide negative responses irrespective of treatments. However, notwithstanding not mentioning the sovereign citizen ideology by name, all vignettes include explicit description of the ideology, where the hypothetical protagonists are explicitly introduced to the sovereign citizen ideology upon receiving the societal triggers. This is done according to the theory, where an exposure to the sovereign citizen ideology is around the same time of receiving the societal trigger. 18 What separates the groups is the treatment vignettes. The control group receives no vignette but a brief on the key characteristics of sovereign citizens. Three treatment vignettes are randomized and given to a respondent. They include two economic treatment vignettes and one racial one. This is because additional racism-related attitudes can be captured by the manipulation of race within the economic treatment, which cannot be done for the racial treatment. This study acknowledges that respondents cannot be “programmed” to think in this study’s desired direction – e.g., become a racist – within a short timeframe as the survey itself; therefore, all vignettes are written as generic stories that aim to be found personally relatable by respondents. The economic treatments tell a story of a couple with children becoming unemployed while witnessing the government bailing out bigger businesses. Both treatments tell the same story except the name of the couple: Connor and Olivia in the first treatment and Deiondre and Kalisha in the second treatment. This, as mentioned above, is designed to capture additional racial effects within the economic treatments by giving respondents archetypical names of white and black Canadians. The intuition of these vignettes is based on previous economic triggers named by the literature review. The story borrows significantly from events, including the 2008 Financial Crisis, where individuals experienced economic catastrophe beyond their control while the government bailed out more prominent financial institutions. However, this study avoids overly specific details that characterize a particular crisis, such as the massive home repossessions during the 2008 crisis, to increase the relevance of the vignette to a more significant number of respondents. Similarly, the racial treatment features Connor and Olivia responding negatively to the government’s efforts to mitigate systematic racism against the black community, which protests police brutality against them. It is intuitive why there is only one racial treatment – it is 19 counterintuitive for Deiondre and Kalisha, a black couple, to protest social movements that aim to protect them from police brutalities. The writing of this vignette is primarily based on the Black Lives Matter movement. A reasonable objection can be raised here about the validity of the vignette, where one may argue that this vignette is simply an opinion poll asking whether people are racists or not. To dispel such doubt, one first needs to acknowledge that a respondent cannot be programmed into thinking like a racist in less than five minutes. The viable alternative is to create a vignette that the respondent can relate to in real life. By providing a vignette featuring a white couple being overtly racist, this treatment captures whether people believe that racism is a legitimate justification for the outcome. If respondents agree to such justifications, what this entails is beyond the conclusion that respondents are racist, but that racism is a legitimate justification for the sovereign citizen ideology, which has more significant external implications against H2. However, following the story, it is also necessary to include a directional primer that guides the respondents toward thinking about the sovereign citizens movement. This is subtle but important, as the respondents’ resonance with the story may not be directed at the sovereign citizens' movement. Therefore, following each story, a quick description of the sovereign citizen's ideology, such as that the government has illegitimately forced people into “contracts,” is given to the respondents and that the fictional characters believe in these thoughts as the result of their self-perceived mistreatments by the government. A potential objection here is that such vignettes do not capture the entire picture of the sovereign citizen ideology. Indeed, this could be valid, as since its inception during the mid-twentieth century, the sovereign citizen ideology has evolved into a complex theoretical framework primarily rooted in illusions rather than facts – that paints an alternative worldview. 20 However, because of this, this study chooses such generic language within the vignettes, as featuring a detailed description of the movement would be time-consuming and make the survey harder for respondents to follow. By focusing on the most identifiable characteristics of sovereign citizens, like those seen on TV shows like Court Cam, the vignettes would resonate better with respondents by giving quick and relatable things to consider. The respondents are given six response choices, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” and a “not sure” option. These responses are recorded after the survey on a range from 0 to 1, with “strongly agree” at 0, “strongly disagree” at 1, and “not sure” at 0.5. Around 760 respondents took the survey, which took place around the end of March 2024. The expected results of the hypotheses, having now outlined the methods, are as follows. For H1, one should expect the treatment groups to respond more positively to the sovereign citizen's movement (The difference between the alternative and null hypothesis is more significant than zero). For H2, the same expectation applies. This study studies the difference between the means between the groups, also known as the Average Causal Effect (ACE). One-sided t-tests are conducted to see if the differences are statistically significant to the study’s expected results. For H3, there should be stark contrast in the expected direction between respondents that live in different locations. Because of the survey's randomized setup, the ACE estimation is unbiased in this case, as it satisfies all the assumptions for unbiased estimations. All calculations are done through the statistical software R. 21 5. Results Before presenting the results, it is necessary to provide an overview of the data. This, however, exposes significant issues with the data. The most significant issue is the age distribution of the sample: 469 out of the 768 respondents are above the age of fifty-five, with 151 respondents between forty-five and fifty-four years old. This represents a significant drawback to the estimation of the ACE, as the over-representation of specific age segments potentially influence the estimation. The attempts to weight the data were unsuccessful; nonetheless, this study presents its results below and discusses them. Consequently, around half of the sample declared themselves retired, with slightly more (301 vs. 297) stating they worked full-time. The over-abundance of retirees in the sample, like age groups, may negatively impact the robustness of the estimations. Other than age, the sample appears to be nationally representative regarding other characteristics. 245 and 218 respondents support the Conservative and the Liberal Party, respectively, with 86 supporting the NDP. Five hundred twenty-one respondents live in large cities and suburbs, with 137 more living in small towns. 372 and 370 respondents identify as females and males, respectively. Regarding income, 285 respondents earn between $50,000 and $99,999, and 165 respondents earn between $25,000 and $49,999. However, the data also features 176 respondents – more than one-seventh of the sample – earning between $100,000 and $199,999, and 39 respondents earning more than $200,000 annually. This may pose additional bias in the estimation. Almost all in the sample have completed at least secondary education, with around one-tenth (87 respondents) having completed professional and graduate degrees (e.g., JD, Ph.D., etc.). Almost all respondents (719 out of 768) have Canadian citizenship. 22 First, the race treatment, presented in Appendix 3, has failed to reject the null hypothesis across all categories. Instead, the reverse to H2 appears statistically significant, meaning that exposing respondents to the race treatment unambiguously increases hostility towards the sovereign citizens movement. One potential concern here is the social desirability bias, where, in this context, respondents view the sovereign citizen ideology negatively because it is deemed socially acceptable. However, the social desirability bias can be ruled out because of anonymous responses. Despite the disappointing survey outcomes, insights are still gained. First, the result shows that racism is an unambiguously unacceptable concept today for most of the population in the sense that it cannot justify the evasions of daily laws, as do sovereign citizens. Out of those who received the race treatment, only seven chose “agree,” with 97 out of the total 185 respondents selecting “strongly disagree” and another 48 respondents selecting “disagree.” In the vignette, Connor and Olivia – a white couple – are racist, given their reaction to the social movement; by disagreeing with the vignette and their behaviours – not following laws – the respondents show that racism does not act as a justification for the sovereign citizen movement, that being more racist does not induce ideological affinity to the sovereign citizen ideology. Despite such insights, H2 has failed to reject the null hypothesis. Consequently, the sections below discuss H1, which has successfully rejected the null hypothesis and reflects some patterns already seen in H2. Table 1 in Appendix 2 below presents the results of the economic treatment. In addition to the results of the two treatments, this study combines the two treatment groups— “overall economic”— to see the overall ACE for the economic treatment. All figures presented in the 23 charts are means. The means then undergo t-tests between them and the mean of the control, and stars are attached based on the p-values of these tests using conventional scales. However, before moving on, this study finds it necessary first to justify the validity of “overall economic,” as objections might be posed that “white economic” and “black economic” contain separate underlining mechanisms—such as the difference in race—that the two cannot be combined. To vindicate its choice, this study first computes the difference in means between “white economic” and “black economic” and finds no statistically significant differences across the subsets. Figure 1: comparing the control and treatment across groups. The result produced by the group “overall economic” is statistically significant. Importantly, this difference is only statistically significant under specific subsets instead of the dataset in general. Further, there is no statistically significant difference when the data is 24 examined. Therefore, having obtained no statistically significant differences between the two economic treatment groups, this study analyzes the economic treatment. Holistically, the economic treatment provides statistically significant results for this study to reject the null hypothesis for H1. When exposed to economic strains, respondents increased their ideological affinity – at least non-confrontational attitudes – towards the sovereign citizens movement. Observationally, this is shown through the more positive agreement with the question by the respondents, as shown below, Specifically, “overall economic” is statistically different and more significant in value than the control at 0.05 on a one-point scale. This indicates a positive effect of around in attitude caused by the economic treatment towards the sovereign citizen's movement when no subsets are involved. Although 0.05 is not substantial on a one-point scale, it shows that economic treatment is a valid predictor of one’s ideological affinity towards the movement. What this implies, then, is a validation of the previous literature that exposure to sudden economic crisis increases one’s willingness to see the sovereign citizen ideology as socially acceptable. Compared to the control group, the results show that, in other words, the sovereign citizen ideology becomes justified. To contextualize this further, the survey result aligns with the historical accounts of Hodge (2019), among others, that economic catastrophes, including the 2008 Financial Crisis and COVID-19, provide a sizeable boost in the public’s subscription to the sovereign citizen ideology. This may also explain the rise of figures like Trump, who, like other populists including Modi in India and Bolsonaro in Brazil, represent a breakaway from the “old” government that has been corrupted and secretly manipulated against the will of the commons. Although less conspiratorial than sovereign citizen ideology, mainstream populism can undoubtedly be implied by this study’s results, where the confrontations between individuals and 25 the government reach an apex when shock events, combined with the spread of conspiracy theories, aid one’s belief into ideological affinities of theories like that of the sovereign citizens. H3 is on location; however, it tells a different story. In short, H3 fails to reject the null hypothesis, mainly because of the results from H2. While the part on magnitude mostly matches what the hypothesis theorizes, the direction does not. Specifically, this is reflected in H2, where the disagreement with the vignette among the respondents following the race treatment is firm within suburbs and rural areas at approximately 0.112 and 0.15, respectively, compared to 0.108 and 0.081 in small towns and large cities. A similar observation is made for the economic treatment, where respondents in suburbs respond strongly following the treatment, with the agreement increasing by 0.11, compared to 0.059 in large cities. However, this overall trend is weak, if not doubtful, as respondents in small towns and rural areas produce little difference in agreement with the prompt following the treatment in the opposite direction. To summarize, these results reveal interesting insights but do not constitute convincing evidence to reject the null hypothesis of H3. 26 Figure 2: economic treatment across different resident locations. The magnitude of ACEs is more significant among those further from the cities (suburbs and rural areas). However, results remain statistically insignificant, as the directions are as the theory has predicted. Figure 3: Race treatment across different resident locations. These results only provide limited insights, as although the ACE among respondents living in rural areas is substantially larger than that among those living in cities, it is in the opposite direction as the theory has predicted. Additionally, respondents living in the suburbs demonstrate little reaction to the treatment. However, what these results reveal, though to a limited degree, is a divide between the population within cities and those who are not; the pattern observed, albeit disappointing concerning H3, can suggest a different thinking mechanism among these groups. This is particularly germane to those living in suburban areas, who respond particularly positively to economic treatment. Suburban areas could represent the middle working class, where the economic treatment is personally relatable to many respondents, certainly in the American context, such as those in the Midwest facing foreclosures in 2008. What this implies, then, is a 27 more nuanced picture of the types of individuals attracted to conspiracy theories far from what conventional wisdom portrays, such as those with little education living in impoverished areas. While this study does not outright reject conventional wisdom, it provides additional details where this conventional image could be missing out on those in suburban areas, desperately looking for relief when an economic crisis hits, where the budget becomes unsustainable for a regular middle-class lifestyle. 28 6. Conclusion Having covered the results of the survey, this study now presents the following: H1: The null hypothesis was rejected (with great caution regarding external validity). H2: Failed to reject the null hypothesis. H3: Failed to reject the null hypothesis. This study focuses on societal factors for one’s ideological affinity to the sovereign citizens' movement. It uses quantitative methods to test the two significant factors from previous studies: economic hardships and racism. By exposing respondents to economic or race treatments using a randomized survey experiment, it successfully rejects one of three null hypotheses. Economic hardships increase one’s affinity to the sovereign citizen ideology. Furthermore, it is tentatively found that this increase is most visible among young working middle-classes in suburban areas, as the reactions to economic and racial treatments are stronger among suburbanites than city-dwellers. In contrast, racism does not increase one’s ideological affinity to the sovereign citizen movement but the opposite. Respondents unambiguously distance themselves from the sovereign citizens' movement when exposed to the race treatment. Furthermore, these results potentially entail the importance of one’s social environment in persuading one to affiliate oneself with conspiracy theories such as the sovereign citizen movement, contributing further to the “nature versus nurture” debate when it comes to believing conspiracy theories. The results show inconsistent patterns among personal characteristics, including predisposed racism and location, but otherwise with exogenous shocks, such as economic crises. The policy implication of this is vital, as this conclusion if further validated by further studies, meant that the sovereign citizen movement and conspiracy theories, in general, 29 will not end, for they are a function of the overall well-being of the time. Their mere presence is a sign of the underlying issues within the current political system, such as with political trust, as this study reveals. A significant limitation of this study, however, is the sample. The sample is overly populated with older respondents, around half fifty-five years old and above. The lack of younger respondents represents the significant weakness of the study, as the sample obtained lacks representativeness. This unrepresentativeness permeates the entire sample regardless of the subset. The weakness caused by this shortfall is significant, as means for specific subsets are calculated with tiny sample sizes, discounting claims of unbiasedness. While the randomized nature of survey experiments ensures that the estimation of ACEs is unbiased regarding selection bias, the estimations can still lack external validity from being overly populated by older individuals. Another limitation and potential improvement is the vignettes themselves. This specifically refers to the economic vignettes. The real-world equivalent of the vignettes comes from recent events such as the 2008 Financial Crisis. Basing the vignettes off events like these might not initiate a strong sense of personal relatedness for those respondents where these events do not connect to their lives closely. A seventy-year-old in 2008, for instance, might not be affected at all by the economic hardship, whereas a twenty-five-year-old middle-class worker could have lost everything in life. To improve this, the vignettes should be based on real-world equivalents that are equally relatable to all age and population segments, such as events like COVID-19, where the effects of lockdowns and the economic downturn – in consumption, earning, and everyday economic lives – might be more applicable to both the younger and older generations. 30 Future studies, then, must further test the validity of these results. First, they should improve the method and utilize more sophisticated statistical techniques while accounting for the survey sample. The author’s lack of training in methods prevents the use of advanced statistical methods, and future studies are expected to outperform this paper. Alternatively, a more expansive and representative sample would be the best test for the study’s validity, as this study has already identified significant issues with its results. This study is pessimistic about the external validity of its results due to the lack of representativeness within the sample, and it is hoped that future surveys will mitigate such bias to deliver results with more external validity. However, a more extensive task for future research is to fill in the gap within the process tracing. This study's definition of “ideological affinity” is lax for analytical clarity, but it should not be this way. The exact process of how someone receives a treatment/shock to become a sovereign citizen remains unidentified after this study. This study only identifies the treatment likely to initiate one’s exploration of the sovereign citizen ideology, but the exact process tracing remains the work of future research. Achieving this might require means beyond quantitative ones, such as interviews and focus groups. Nonetheless, this study serves as a starting point for a more extensive series of topics that seek to uncover more about the sovereign citizen movement. Another direction for further studies is the temporal aspect of the relationship found in this study. Namely, whether one’s ideological affinity with the movement decreases in the long run following an economic shock or prolonged economic hardship, this has significant policy implications. Nevertheless, this study’s setup, a cross-sectional analysis of survey respondents, cannot provide insights into this question. Furthermore, this contextualizes previous findings against the sovereign citizen movement extendable to conspiracy theories in general, where previous political distrust is hard to mitigate (Levi and Stoker 2000; Hetherington and Rudolph 31 2015; Citrin and Stoker 2018). 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CID: 20.500.12592/wf165k. 41 Appendix 1: Survey Questions Control Question: “Some people think that individuals can emancipate themselves from government control and reclaim their sovereignty. The argument is that government has forcefully imposed a contract with the people, overstepped its bounds, and made itself an illegitimate entity for people to follow their orders. As a result, these people think that existing laws and regulations, like paying taxes, do not need to be followed. Rather, they need only answer to laws they see as legitimate.” Q: What do you think? Do you agree that people should only answer to laws they see as legitimate? Economic Treatment: “Connor and Olivia, a family with two children, who live in a medium-sized city. For years, they have worked hard, abide by laws, and paid taxes to make ends meet through their stable 9-to-5 jobs. However, the region's economic hardship has only made life more challenging for them despite their persistent but fruitless efforts to stay afloat economically. Finally, the company they both work at has closed due to the economic crises, as it is small and independently owned. The now-unemployed couple stays home, unable to find jobs, while seeing on the news that the governments bail out the more prominent businesses, and they are angered by the government’s actions. Eventually, they come to believe that they can emancipate themselves from government control and reclaim their sovereignty. The government has forcefully imposed a contract with them, 42 overstepped its bounds, and made itself an illegitimate entity for people to follow their orders. As a result, Connor and Olivia now think that existing laws and regulations, like paying taxes, do not need to be followed. Rather, they need only answer to laws they see as legitimate.” Q: What do you think? Do you agree that people should only answer to laws they see as legitimate? Economic Treatment 2: “Deiondre and Kalisha, a family with two children, who live in a medium-sized city. For years, they have worked hard, abide by laws, and paid taxes to make ends meet through their stable 9-to-5 jobs. However, the region's economic hardship has only made life more challenging for them despite their persistent but fruitless efforts to stay afloat economically. Finally, the company they both work at has closed due to the economic crises, as it is small and independently owned. The now-unemployed couple stays home, unable to find jobs, while seeing on the news that the governments bail out the more prominent businesses, and they are angered by the government’s actions. Eventually, they come to believe that they can emancipate themselves from government control and reclaim their sovereignty. The government has forcefully imposed a contract with them, overstepped its bounds, and made itself an illegitimate entity for people to follow their orders. As a result, Connor and Olivia now think that existing laws and regulations, like paying taxes, do not need to be followed. Rather, they need only answer to laws they see as legitimate.” Q: What do you think? Do you agree that people should only answer to laws they see as legitimate? Race Treatment: 43 “Connor and Olivia are a family with two children who live in a medium-sized city. Following the recent government oppression of the black community, mainly due to the excessive force used by law enforcement against them, the black community has gathered and started a series of large protests across the country. Specifically, the protesters demand greater government protection of minority rights, the end of race-motivated discriminatory policies, and better social programmes and safety nets to ensure racial equality. The government has begun conversations and initiatives to address the problems highlighted by these protests. Eventually, they come to believe that they can emancipate themselves from government control and reclaim their sovereignty. The government has forcefully imposed a contract with them, overstepped its bounds, and made itself an illegitimate entity for people to follow their orders. As a result, Connor and Olivia now think that existing laws and regulations, like paying taxes, do not need to be followed. Rather, they need only answer to laws they see as legitimate.” Q: What do you think? Do you agree that people should only answer to laws they see as legitimate? Potential responses with coded values: Strongly Agree (2) Agree (1) Neutral (0) Disagree (-1) Strongly Disagree (-2) Do not know / Not sure (0) 44 Appendix 2: Economic Treatment All figures presented in the charts are means. Subset Control White Econ. Black Econ. Overall Econ. Black vs. White No Subset 0.25 0.28 0.3** 0.29* 0.02 Location: Large City 0.276 0.2798 0.36** 0.325 0.08* Location: Small Town 0.27 0.29 0.19 0.25 -0.11 Location: Suburb 0.194 0.3** 0.304** 0.301*** 0.003 Location: Rural 0.3 0.172 0.25 0.216 0.08 45 Appendix 3: Race Treatment All figures presented in the charts are means. Subset Control Treatment No Subset 0.25 0.18 Location: Large City 0.276 0.195 Location: Small Town 0.27 0.162 Location: Suburb 0.193 0.181 Location: Rural 0.3 0.15
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Political Science
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Wright, Matthew (Assistant professor of political science)
Answering only to legitimate laws : societal triggers towards the sovereign citizen movement in Canada
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