ABSTRACT
Scholars agree that participating in social movements has significant effects on activists, shaping attitudes, identities, political involvement, and life choices long into the future. This chapter looks at the outcomes of participation in far-right movements in the United States, specifically the racist movements of neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Some studies suggest that personal outcomes might not differ much between rightist activists and those in progressive movements. The chapter argues that the personal outcomes that flow from movement activism can be understood by looking closely at how people experience themselves as activists and post-activists. It examines personal outcomes of participating in far-right movements through a parallel case analysis of two life history interviews with racist activists. Smith's model of counterfactual reasoning can generate new insights into the processes that generate personal outcomes of social movement activism. Social movement scholars can enrich the study of outcomes by attending to the idiosyncrasies and distinctive routes of causality in biographical trajectories.
