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The aim of this study is to get a better understanding of the transition out of an aberrantclosed group. This thematic literature study is based on 16 articles of people leaving criminalgangs, closed religious groups, and white supremacy groups. The different articles focus onprocesses that lead people to leaving their groups or the different changes and experiencespeople went through as they left. Three themes highlight the common experiences oftransitioning out of these groups are: disillusion, the experience of loss, and the struggle withcreating a new identity. Some people experienced disillusionment with their groups whilethey were still inside the group while others' experience of disillusionment with their formergroup came after they had left it. People who left their groups often began to shift their pointof reference, whereby they started to compare themself with norms and values that existed intheir new setting, although this could take time. Their previous group's narratives sometimesweighed heavily on their minds. Some people felt as if they had gone astray after they hadleft their former groups. The disillusionment and the different losses people went throughlead some of the people into what can be described as an identity crisis. A place where somefelt not only alienated from their former group or the society that they entered but sometimesalso felt alienated from themself, a mental state of disorientation. Some people struggled withwhat can be referred to as a hangover identity. Although they tried to get rid of their previousideas and thought patterns they were still haunted by them. For some people their newidentities both helped them distance themselves from thoughts and feelings connected to theirformer identity but also helped them see themself as something else then a former member oftheir group. Others struggled to access desired roles and identity. They instead experiencedthe pains of goal failure where they were held back because of societal views of their formerroles.

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In the early Cold War decades, the Citizens’ Councils of America (CCA) became the flagship conservative right-wing social movement organization (SMO). As part of its organizational activities, it engaged in a highly sophisticated propaganda effort to mobilize pro-segregationist opinion, merging traditional racist arguments with modern Cold War geopolitics to characterize civil rights activism and federal civil rights reforms as an effort to bring about a tyrannical, Soviet-inspired, dictatorship. Through a content discourse analysis, this research aims to contribute to understanding what factors determine how SMO’s deploy propaganda rhetoric. The main hypothesis is that geopolitical factors, defined here as specific geographic contexts in which sociopolitical issues are situated and from which propaganda rhetoric is deployed, are influential determinants. Since SMO rhetoric reflects its larger ideological orientation, SMO ideology is also influenced by geopolitical factors. For comparative analysis, propaganda literature from the Ku Klux Klan, as well as elite segregationist rhetoric from the same period is included. Relying on frame theory all rhetoric is quantitatively analyzed centering on the question of what factors drive SMO frame messaging. To contribute to frame theory a concept is proposed called frame constellation, which is a web of SMO frame rhetoric and symbolism that functions as an overlapping, intersecting and interrelated system of ideas which revolve around a central intellectual logic for collective action.

This thesis examines the impacts of white supremacy on Jews’ freedom of religion in the United States. In what ways is the American white supremacist movement a threat to Jews’ freedom of religion, and to what extent is the federal state protecting this right in accordance with Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)? By using the Legal Analytical Method, and by applying Daniel Ian Rubin’s approach to Critical Race Theory (CRT), this thesis finds that the white supremacist movement is threatening Jews’ freedom of religion in three main ways: through physical attacks, psychological intimidation, and economic effects. Although the state provides Jewish communities with some protection from white supremacists, recent antisemitic attacks show that the U.S. government could do more to ensure that American Jews can fully enjoy Article 18 of the ICCPR.