Exploring the Social Networks of Homegrown Violent Extremist Military Veterans, United States, 2003-2019

This study aimed to comparatively explore the risk factors of a sample of homegrown violent extremist (HVE) civilians (n=30) and veterans (people with a military background; n=30), who enacted or planned an HVE event between 2003-2019, as informed by people from their various social networks. A HVE event is defined as acts of terrorism within the context of ideologically motivated violence or plots (Southers, 2013). For veterans these ideologies include White Supremacy/Neo-Nazi/Anti-Muslim/Anti-LGBTQ, Anti-Government, Radical Islam, and Black Nationalism. A group of non-HVE veterans (n=10) served as a comparison group. For both HVE and non-HVE veterans, this investigation was conducted across the military lifecycle (premilitary, military, postmilitary), and included an exploration of protective factors against HVE across the military lifecycle for the non-HVE comparison group.
The collection includes three relational data files with information about demographics (DS1), radical experience (DS2), and military experience (DS3). A fourth dataset tabulates the type of social network informant for each HVE civilian, HVE veteran, and non-HVE veteran (DS4).