White Identity and the Tolerance of Violence

Abstract

What structures white Americans’ support for political violence? While the utility and consequences of white violence on American politics is well understood, this dissertation complements those accounts by taking a quantitative approach to find what motivates some whites to be more supportive of the use of violence, when, and why. Leveraging historical and contemporary survey data, I test the theory that those who are most attached to whiteness will be more supportive of modes of violence that are utilized to protect and secure the dominance of whites. I find that among whites that do tolerate violence, there is hardly anything that distinguishes them from other whites demographically. Rather, the best explanation for what makes some whites more tolerant of violence than others is their attachment to whiteness itself and other dimensions of dominance, like religiosity, gender, authoritarianism, and support for the status quo, which together comprise the reigning “way of life” they ardently, and violently, seek to defend. In so doing, this dissertation lays bare the through line of white racial violence, clarifying its regular recurrence, and most recent resurgence, in American politics.