Sovereign Citizens: What One Extremist Group Can Teach Us About Democratic States and Sovereignty

In this research I employ an ethnographic approach to better understand the Sovereign Citizens Movement (SCM), which is an extremist group that originated in the United States. The SCM is founded on conspiracy theories that claim the US is a corporation, and that citizens can reclaim their sovereignty from the corporation, making them exempt from government regulations. I address two questions: first, why are people attracted to the SCM? and second what are the implications for modern liberal states when citizens reject the sovereignty of the state? I found that people join the SCM because it provides pseudo-legal strategies—strategies they believe to be legitimate, but that are not recognized by the US government—to help them flee the state authority. I then argue that SCM exists because of tensions in the social contract that modern liberal states are founded on—as such, resolving these problems involves reconsidering the social contract and highlights the importance of reimagining the future of sovereignty.

Author

• Biery, Piper Blotter

• conspiracy theory
• democratic theory
• domestic terrorism
• ethnography
• extremism
• sovereign citizens

Identifier

hdl:1920/14047

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/14047