Abstract
I propose a five-component model of political inter-group violence. A difficult life situation (social, political and economic inequalities, resource demands, adverse physical circumstances, threats to security, respect and self-determination) provides the background in which perceptions of social injustice tied to social identities arise. Leadership is essential in invoking and reframing these identities and social injustices in relation to both local and international groups and audiences, and thus need to (a) formulate an appealing vision, (b) provide exemplary actions that inspires the group and its supporters (c) justify that no alternative actions are available anymore and (d) therefore, encourage violent actions to emerge. This is likely to lead to a further escalation because the targeted group will retaliate, justifying the action in the first place, aggravating the original grievances and threats, validating the perceived injustices and strengthen and polarise salient identities. Implications for interventions are discussed.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The term terrorism is highly debated (e.g., Cooper, 2001; Victoroff, 2005; Wieviorka, 1995; White, 2001) and is often used to serve particular political agendas (Bandura, 2004; White, 2001). Therefore, I will use the term ‘targeted inter-group violence’ when referring to violent behaviour committed by groups in order to advance political agendas by hurting, injuring or threatening targets of another group, whether civilian or otherwise.
- 2.
I refer to perceived injustice, that is psychological feelings, beliefs and perceptions of experienced, observed or attributed injustice. Individuals are likely to differ in these perceptions and these perceptions may not correspond to more objective evaluations of justice or injustice. For sake of simplicity, I will use the term ‘justice’ to denote these subjective perceptions of justice.
References
Bandura, A. (2004). The role of selective moral disengagement in terrorism and counterterrorism. In F. M. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences and interventions (pp. 121–150). Washington, DC: APA.
Blimes, R. J. (2006). The indirect effect of ethnic heterogeneity on the likelihood of civil war onset. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50, 536–547.
Colvard, K. (2002). Commentary: The psychology of terrorists. BMJ, 324, 359.
Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1987). Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings. Academy of Management Review, 12, 637–647.
Cooper, N. H. A. (2001). Terrorism: The problem of definition revisited. American Behavioral Scientist, 44, 881–893.
Cragin, K., & Chalk, P. (2003). Terrorism and development. Using social and economic development to inhibit a resurgence of terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Crenshaw, M. (2000). The psychology of terrorism: An agenda for the 21st century. Political Psychology, 21, 405–420.
Crosby, F. J. (1982). Relative deprivation and the working woman. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, R., Harb, C., Al-Sarraf, S., & Nashabe, O. (2008). Support for resistance in Iraq: An explorative study. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30, 167–175.
Folger, R., & Cropanzano, R. (1998). Organizational justice and human resource management. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Folger, R., & Cropanzano, R. (2001). Fairness theory: Justice as accountability. In J. Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 1–55). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gurr, T. T. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hage, G. (2003). ‘Comes a time we are all enthusiasm’: Understanding Palestinian suicide bombers in times of exighophobia. Public Culture, 15, 65–89.
Harb, C., Fischer, R., & Al-Hafedh, A. (2010). Understanding support for resistance in Iraq: Socio-psychological predictors in a nationally representative sample. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Hegre, H., & Sambanis, N. (2006). Sensitivity analysis of empirical results of civil war onset. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50, 508–535.
Human Rights Charter. (1948). The universal declaration of human rights. New York, NY: United Nations Assembly.
Johnson, P. W., & Feldmann, T. B. (1992). Personality types and terrorism: Self-psychology perspectives. Forensic Reports, 5(4), 293–303.
Jost, J. T., & Hunyady, O. (2002). The psychology of system justification and the palliative function of ideology. European Review of Social Psychology, 13, 111–153.
Khan, S. S., & Fischer, R. (2007). Negotiating identity and injustice: A case study of Hindu Nationalism in India. Invited keynote address at the First Negotiation Identity Congress, The Open University, Oxford, UK (www.identityresearch.org).
Klandermans, B. (2002). How group identification helps to overcome the dilemma of collective action. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 887–902.
Krueger, A. B., & Maleckova, J. (2009). Opinion and the occurrence of international terrorism. Science, 325, 1534–1536.
Kruglanski, A. W., Chen, X., Dechesne, M., Fishman, S., & Orehek, E. (2009). Fully committed: Suicide bombers’ motivation and the quest for personal significance. Political Psychology, 30, 331–357.
Kruglanski, A. W., & Fishman, S. (2009). Psychological factors in terrorism and counterterrorism: Individual, group and organizational levels of analysis. Social Issues and Policy Review, 3, 1–44.
Leung, K., Chiu, W., & Au, Y. F. (1993). Sympathy and support for industrial actions: A justice analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 781–787.
Leventhal, G. S. (1980). What should be done with equity theory? New approaches to the study of fairness in social relationships. In K. J. Gergen, M. S. Greenberg, & R. H. Willis (Eds.), Social exchange: Advances in theory and research (pp. 27–54). New York, NY: Plenum.
Marsella, M. J. (2004). Reflections on international terrorism: Issues, concepts and directions. In F. M. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences and interventions (pp. 11–48). Washington, DC: APA.
Mikula, G. (1993). On the experience of injustice. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology, 4 (pp. 223–244). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Mikula, G., & Wenzel, M. (2000). Justice and social conflict. International Journal of Psychology, 35, 126–135.
Pilisuk, M., & Zazzi, J. (2006). Toward a psycholsocial theory of military and economic violence in the era of globalization. Journal of Social Issues, 62, 41–62.
Post, J. M., Ruby, K. G., & Shaw, E. D. (2002). The radical group in context: 1. An integrated framework for the analysis of group risk for terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 25(2), 73–100.
Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. Washington, DC: APA.
Reicher, S. D. (2002). The psychology of crowd dynamics. In M. Hogg & R. S. Tindale (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook of social psychology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Reicher, S.S. (2004). The context of social identity: Domination, resistance and change. Journal of Political Psychology, 25, 921–946.
Reicher, S.S., & Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and nation: Categorization, contestation and mobilization. London, UK: Sage.
Ross, J. I. (1996). A model of the psychological causes of oppositional political terrorism. Peace & Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 2(2), 129–141.
Saucier, G., Akers, L. G., Shen-Miller, S., Knezevic, G., & Stankov, L. (2009). Patterns of thinking in militant extremism. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 256–272.
Schuman, E. (2002). Combating terrorism: An immodest proposal. Psychology & Education: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 39(2), 43–45.
Simon, B., & Klandermans, B. (2001). Politicized collective identity: A social psychological perspective. American Psychologist, 56, 319–331.
Smith, H. J., Spears, R., & Oyen, M. (1994). The influence of personal deprivation and salience of group membership on justice evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 277–299.
Staub, E. (2004). Understanding and responding to group violence: Genocide, mass killing and terrorism. In F. M. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences and interventions (pp. 151–168). Washington, DC: APA.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks Cole.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup relations. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (2nd ed., pp. 7–24). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.
Triandis, H. C., & Khan, N. (2003). Some hypotheses on the psychology of terrorism. Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin, 36, 33–40.
Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Tyler, T. R., & Smith, H. J. (1998). Social movements and social justice. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 595–629). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
UN Charter. (1945). Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice. New York, NY: United Nations Assembly.
Victoroff, J. (2005). The mind of the terrorist. A review and critique of psychological approaches. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49, 3–42.
Wagner, R. V. (2006). Terrorism: A peace psychological analysis. Journal of Social Issues, 62, 155–172.
Wagner, R. V., & Long, K. R. (2004). Terrorism from a peace psychology perspective. In F. M. Moghaddam & A. J. Marsella (Eds.), Understanding terrorism: Psychosocial roots, consequences and interventions (pp. 207–220). Washington, DC: APA.
White, J. R. (2001). Political eschatology: A theology of antigovernment extremism. The American Behavioural Scientist, 44, 937–956.
Wieviorka, M. (1995). Terrorism in the context of academic research. In M. Crenshaw (Ed.), Terrorism in context (pp. 597–606). Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fischer, R. (2011). Social Identity and Justice in Violent Conflicts – A Dynamic Model of Intergroup Conflict. In: Kals, E., Maes, J. (eds) Justice and Conflicts. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19035-3_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19035-3_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-19034-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-19035-3
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)