Radicalized Margins: Eric Rudolph and Religious Violence

Beau Seegmiller

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2007, vol. 19, issue 4, 511-528

Abstract: In recent years we have witnessed a growing body of scholarship that asserts that religion often motivates violence; anti-abortion violence is presented as a prominent example. Through examining the rhetoric and actions of anti-abortion bomber Eric Rudolph, I question the centrality of religion when invocations of divine authority or apocalyptic narratives are conspicuously absent in his justificatory writings. I argue that other social, political, and strategic considerations are more significant in the emergence of a radicalized anti-abortion movement than religion. This analysis nuances notions of a causal relationship between religion and violence and calls for interrogation of the category.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09546550701606531 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ftpvxx:v:19:y:2007:i:4:p:511-528

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ftpv20

DOI: 10.1080/09546550701606531

Access Statistics for this article

Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest

More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().