Should activism be treated as an indicator of attitudes towards political violence?

Multiple contemporary meta-analyses pointed out activism as one of the risk factors for engagement in political violence, which is in line with the early radicalization models. However, others pointed out that joining activist organizations could prevent individuals from conducting violent acts. This study attempted to empirically evaluate whether activism should be treated as a risk factor using a large international World Value Survey data set and controlling for support for family violence. The initial outcomes have confirmed that activists tend to hold more positive attitudes towards political violence than non-activists. However, this relationship lost practical significance when the support for family violence was included in the model, which was replicated across different political regimes and contexts. Although such results do not support the notion of activists exhibiting more positive attitudes towards political violence, they also do not imply that their attitudes towards political violence are more negative compared to non-activists. Therefore, without knowing more about the specific social issue and context in which it had developed, conclusions regarding one's attitudes towards political violence based only on his or her history of activism seem to be negligibly more correct than random guessing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]