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This case study illustrates some of the methodological and ethical difficulties of gaining access to those who are members of a stigmatized group. Beginning in 1992 through the early 2000s co-author Betty Dobratz attended rallies and demonstrations of White power supporters to understand this type of right-wing extremism. We also interviewed White power activists, both leaders and followers, as well as collected questionnaires from those we could not directly interview. For the research reported in this case study, we were interested in White power activists' views on both the use of leaderless resistance and violence as strategies for bringing about movement goals. We used qualitative coding as well as statistical techniques to examine data collected from both interviews and questionnaires.

The authors develop four exercises to further explore themes that are discussed in the Waldner and Dobratz article "Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation (Sociology Compass 7: 377–389)," including Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo), From Famous Political Speech ("Ich Bin Ein Berliner") to Graffiti: "Ich bin Berliner", "Protest, Violence, and Graffiti in Greek Politics," and "Political Speech or Just Tagging: Billboards and Culture Jamming." The authors encourage students to explore them such as motivations for graffiti, the difficulty in discerning writer intent, the use of graffiti as a form of political protest, and the historical and geographical context of graffiti. The authors provide links to YouTube videos and supplementary readings.

AbstractGraffiti is a popular topic in the sociological, criminological, and linguistic literature with several book length treatments of various types of graffiti including tagging, gang graffiti, murals, and "bombings". Yet, political sociologists have paid little attention to the role of graffiti as a form of contentious politics despite the often political nature of graffiti messages. As a result, most of the political research on graffiti is by non‐sociologists. We believe this is an oversight and that both political sociologists and social movement scholars need to seriously consider this form of micro‐level political participation. In this review we (1) demonstrate why some forms of graffiti should be considered a serious form of political participation; (2) compare and contrast graffiti to other forms of resistance including squatting and culture jamming; (3) review research findings on graffiti; and (4) discuss some of the conceptual and methodological challenges for doing graffiti research.

Particularly since the early 1990s, some white power movement leaders have advocated abandoning leader-led organizations in favor of leaderless resistance. We examine the events leading up to this call that illustrate how threat is intertwined with the adoption of leaderless resistance. Using a combination of interview and questionnaire data collected primarily from white power movement followers, we examine views on leaderless resistance as well as the use of violence to advance movement goals. Our findings suggest that while there is support for leaderless resistance, most respondents believe that this strategy should be used in conjunction with leader-led organizations. While most of our respondents supported the use of violence, holding this view does not explain a strategy preference (leader-led organizations or leaderless resistance). Respondents who feared infiltration were more likely to support leaderless resistance. Although not significant, those favoring an electoral-politics strategy were more likely to prefer leader-led organizations over leaderless resistance. Adapted from the source document.