This study investigated state-level variation in the number of right-wing militia groups. We built on prior quantitative examinations by more carefully operationalizing theoretical concepts and testing alternative hypotheses offered to account for the etiology of social movements generally and of militias specifically. Using negative binomial regression, we found that, consistent with previous research, states with higher levels of farm job loss had more militia groups. However, in contrast to prior studies, we did not find gun culture, hospitable political climate, female empowerment, or general economic deprivation to be associated with the number of militia groups. We also found no relationship between the number of militia groups and levels of fundamentalist religious culture and minority empowerment. Our study was the first to test the effects of social disorganization on the number of militias in a state, and we found the two to be positively and significantly associated. We situate our results in the theoretical and empirical literature and outline two challenges for future research. First, scholars must operationalize variables carefully since different measures of the same theoretical concept may result in diverging conclusions. Second, since one major factor (i.e., social disorganization) found in this study to be associated with the number of militia groups in a state was examined here for the first time, it is important for researchers to continue to investigate new hypotheses. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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机译：这项研究调查了右翼民兵团体数量的州级差异。我们在先前的定量检查基础上，通过更仔细地运用理论概念并测试可供选择的假设来解释一般社会运动的病因，尤其是民兵的病因。通过使用负二项式回归，我们发现，与先前的研究一致，农场失业人数更多的州的民兵团体更多。但是，与先前的研究相比，我们没有发现枪支文化，好客的政治气氛，增强女性权能或总体经济匮乏与民兵团体的数量有关。我们还发现，民兵团体的数量与原教旨主义宗教文化水平和少数群体赋权之间没有任何关系。我们的研究是第一个测试社会混乱对一个州民兵人数的影响的研究，我们发现两者之间存在正相关且显着相关。我们将研究结果放在理论和经验文献中，并概述了未来研究的两个挑战。首先，学者们必须谨慎操作变量，因为同一理论概念的不同度量可能导致不同的结论。其次，由于首次在此研究中发现与一个州的民兵团体数量有关的一个主要因素（即社会混乱），因此对于研究人员来说，继续研究新的假设很重要。版权所有（c）2005 John Wiley＆Sons，Ltd.
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