Research Paper on Domestic Extremism and Terrorism

For this assignment, you will fully develop your research paper for this course, which you outlined in the week 2 assignment.

Write a graduate level research paper on the two domestic extremist or terrorist organizations with in-depth profile of both groups, and compare and contrast them. You will also address counter violent extremism programs and techniques that you think would help address both types of threats. As with the week 2 assignment, one group must be right wing, and the other left wing. So you will be writing a research paper that provides a description of each organization including their ideology, goals & objectives, political actions, propaganda techniques, and specifics of their violent actions. You must also address their recruitment and radicalization process. While profiling each group, or towards the end of your paper you will compare and contrast the two selected groups. Finally, you will address counter violent extremism frameworks that your research indicates would be effective against both groups.

As mentioned in the week 2 assignment, we are looking only at extremists inspired by domestic causes within the U.S., from both the left wing and right wing. The FBI generally describes domestic extremist causes or ideology by listing the following threat categories; and you will pick one group from each of these 2 categories:

Right Wing:

• Abortion Extremists (such as the Christian Identity Movement)
• Militia Extremists
• Sovereign Citizen Extremists
• White Supremacy Extremists

Left Wing:

• Animal Rights Extremists
• Anarchist Extremists and Anti-Fascists (Antifa)
• Black Nationalist Extremists
• Environmental Extremists

Assignment Components:

You should have already completed research question, a purpose statement, and a reference list in week 2 of this course. Next, you will complete the body of your final research paper. Your paper will need to consist of the following:

I. Introduction and Research Question (~1 page): The purpose of an introduction is to indicate the subject of your paper and make your point of view clear. An effective introduction also grabs the reader’s attention and communicates what they will know or understand after reading your research paper. Of course a required element for this to be a ‘research paper’ is to include your research question right up front in your introduction as well as the purpose of the research.

II. Review of the Literature (~5 pages): All research projects include a literature review to set out for the reader what knowledge exists on the subject under study and helps the researcher develop the research strategy to use in the study. A good literature review is a thoughtful study of what is written, a summary of the arguments that exist (whether you agree with them or not), and are arranged thematically. The literature review is not an annotated bibliography and should be written in coherent narrative style. Yes, the sources you included in your Week 2 assignment should be included in the literature review for the final assignment. It is expected that you would have added more sources to those presented in Week 2. You should be thoroughly familiar with the sources you chose by this point.

III. Body of your Research (4 pages): Answer the topic areas described above giving in-depth profiles of both groups, comparing and contrasting them, and also addressing countering violent extremism.

IV. Analysis and Findings (2 pages): This section provides the results of your research and the analytical arguments the paper makes as a result of an analysis of the variables, which in this study is the information and evaluation you found on both your extremist groups. This section should also provide the evidence that addresses your research study question(s) and fulfills the purpose of the research. As information is collected, researchers strive to make sense of their data. Generally, researchers interpret their data in one of two ways: holistically or through coding. Holistic analysis does not attempt to break the evidence into parts, but rather to draw conclusions based on the text as a whole. For example, researchers make inferences from entire sections of their study’s protocols, rather than searching through the transcripts to look for isolated characteristics.

V. Conclusions (~2 pages): This section will contain the concluding analytical arguments based on what the research has revealed to answer the research study question(s). Like any conclusion, it should provide a synopsis of the project, the strategy, and the results and what they add to the body of knowledge. This section should also offer suggestions for avenues of future research for other scholars, as all knowledge is evolutionary.

VI. References: This section will contain all references, cited in APA 6th edition format, properly indented, and alphabetically arranged. Your paper must contain a minimum of 10 scholarly reference sources such as peer-reviewed journals. Entitle this section as “References” following the parenthetical and reference citation format style within APA 6th edition. You should be compiling sources and adding to them as you gone along throughout the semester. They should be error free!

Technical Requirements:

Length: 14 pages, double spaced, 1″ margins, 12 pitch type in Times New Roman font

Citations/References: You must use the APA style for this assignment. Your literature review must contain a minimum of 10 scholarly reference sources such as peer-reviewed journals.

Submission: All work is to be submitted as an attachment to the assignment link by 11:55 pm on the due date. All work should be prepared in Microsoft Word format and submitted as an attachment.

Grading: All submissions will be graded using the attached rubric.