Examining the Relationship between General Social Survey (GSS) Measures and Far-Right Ideological Violence: A County-Level Analysis

This report examines how county-level characteristics relate to the likelihood that a violent far-right perpetrator (VFRP) resides in a county.  This study’s novelty is in its creation of independent variables using public opinion data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to measure county-level characteristics over an extended period of time. The GSS is a bi-annual survey of public opinion of the US population. It is one of the most frequently analyzed sources of information in the social sciences, but has rarely been used in studies of terrorism.  In this study, we innovatively aggregated responses to individual items included in the GSS to the county level which allowed us to more carefully operationalize conceptual constructs to past research.