Beyond “Leaderless Resistance”? Toward a Typology for White Supremacist Extremist Leadership

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The specific concept of white supremacist extremist leadership remains understudied, with significant implications for counterterrorism strategies. To bring greater clarity to the varied functions of white supremacist extremist leaders, I examined the role of key actors across the threat landscape. While the structure of hierarchical white supremacist extremist organizations lends itself to conventional approaches for group-based terrorist leadership analysis, underground white supremacist extremist networks and cells require a new framework for understanding influence in a non-hierarchical environment. To fill this gap, I propose a descriptive typology characterizing the distinct functions of underground white supremacist extremist leaders: Framers, Brokers, Enablers, and Pioneers.