The Dynamics of State Repression and Resistance in the Turn to Violence: Parallels in New Left Movements in the United States and Japan

This study examines the long-term life trajectories of radical New Left activists of the late 1960s in the United States and Japan who turned to violence, went underground or into exile at the peak of the protest cycle. Using long-term data collected on over 100 participants who joined twelve armed, clandestine groups, we argue that their trajectories are most fruitfully understood through the lens of contentious interaction between activists and state agents of social control. The study identifies key patterns of social interaction with other actors in the broader movement that facilitated going and staying underground, and later facilitated disengagement from violence, focusing particularly on the role of the legal support network (LSN). Adapted from the source document.