L’engagement illégal : facilitating et precipitating factors

Abstract

It is common to consider that two sets of factors are involved in the commitment to armed militancy : facilitating factors and precipitating factors. In order to see how these elements are embedded within mechanisms involving macro, meso and micro-level factors, we conducted a qualitative sociological survey of 33 activists from extra-parliamentary organizations active in Italy from the 1960s to the 1980s. The analysis of the interviews allows to specify the effect of the family environment on individual trajectories within armed organizations, the role of the ideological and political factor among these different groups of the extra-parliamentary left-wing, the impact of macro, meso and micro social events framed as “decisive” on the paths of these militants. This research thus complements and corrects existing works on smaller samples of Italian clandestine actors (Bosi and Della Porta, 2012).

Keywords

• Terrorism
• clandestinity
• political trajectories
• Italy
• Red Brigades