• Review
• Horowitz (2001)
• Example
• Social Identity Theory
• Relational Models Theory

Strategic Logic of Violence:

• use of ethnic violence as a means to an end (election, political power, economic gain)
• even horrific abuses might be strategic/“rational”

But why do people participate?

• humans usually averse to doing violence
• it is dangerous to participate
• violence sometimes seems to go beyond what is “rational”

Horowitz (2001) tries to explain why ethnic riots emerge:

1. prior hostility between groups
2. precipitating events that trigger outrage
3. sense of justification in killing
4. reduced risk of participation in violence

\(2.\) precipitating events that trigger outrage:

• event that occurs that reveals “bad intentions” of the out-group:
  • e.g.: challenge to domination (by in-group), threat of subordination (to out-group), display of hostility, demonstration of out-group strength, violation of norms
• perceptions of events matter more than what actually happened
• event unleashes moral anger…
  • anger released by doing violence

\(3.\) sense of justification in killing

• people believe that use of violence is justified and may even expect approval
• justifications tend to take two forms:
  • self-defense: precipitating event indicates imminent danger; rumors of out-group preparation for attacks
  • retribution: precipitating event as a “transgression”. Violence to reverse dishonor/right a moral wrong

1898 Racial Violence in North Carolina…

In what way are these factors present? (2 and 3)

1. prior hostility between groups
2. precipitating events that trigger outrage
3. sense of justification in killing
4. reduced risk of participation in violence

Horowitz’s account of ethnic violence steeped in psychology:

• Social Identity Theory
• Relational Models Theory

• A tighter link between these theories

We’ve seen theories of ethnic political conflict motivated by Social Identity Theory:

• Can it also help us make sense of ethnic violence?

Assumptions

1. people desire positive self-esteem
2. social groups/categories have positive/negative connotations that reflect a person’s social identity
3. group status is based on favorable/unfavorable comparison with other groups

Implications

1. people want to increase or maintain positive social identity
2. positive social identity based on positive comparison between in-group and relevant out-group
3. Individuals will leave group, change their group, alter the comparison to make identity more positive

What do people do when their social identity is a source of low esteem?

1. mobility: change category membership
2. social creativity: new dimensions of comparison: what are the features we use to judge group status?
3. social creativity: new evaluative rules: what counts as “better” or “worse” on a given feature?
4. social creativity: new comparison group: what is the other group against which status is compared?
5. social competition: reverse the status of groups being compared

Might any of these strategies lead to ethnic violence? How so?

1. mobility: change category membership
2. social creativity: new dimensions of comparison: what are the features we use to judge group status?
3. social creativity: new evaluative rules: what counts as “better” or “worse” on a given feature?
4. social creativity: new comparison group: what is the other group against which status is compared?
5. social competition: reverse the status of groups being compared

Fiske and Rai (2015)

Relational Models Theory: psychological theory, from the perspective of perpetrators:

• people often judge that to constitute or regulate crucial relationships they are morally required to hurt or kill another person

• by moral, they mean evaluating actions, motives, and intentions with respect to an ideal model of how people should relate

  • what is moral is determined culturally: e.g., corporal punishment of children

Four varieties of moral relationships; focus on two

1. Communal Sharing/unity:

relationship with people in the same group as undifferentiated and equivalent

• shared responsibility, shared fate \(\to\) moral demand to care for members of the in-group and integrity of the group
• threat to one is a threat to all; crime of one is a crime by all
• wrong against the group is a wrong against the individual
• connection to essentialism, social identity

2. Authority Ranking/hierarchy

rank individuals in a hierarchical relationship

• subordinates are to respect/obey/defer to superiors
• the hierarchical relationship is believed to be natural, good, legitimate, necessary
• connection to social identity theory, status, ranked systems

Violence is used to regulate at least one or more of these moral relationships with the victim and others

Violence can…

• create moral relationships (e.g. bonds of unity among perpetrators)
• enhance or transform relationships (e.g. increase group unity, transform ethnic hierarchy)
• protect relationships (preventative violence e.g. to defend ethnic group)
• redress/rectify relationships (punitive violence: e.g. avenge transgression against the group/ethnic hierarchy)

People are more likely to use violence to regulate relationship…

• when the stakes are high (people believe this relationship is very important or essential)
• when the moral relationships involve Communal Sharing and Authority Ranking morality
• if there is a transgression that threatens the very existence (constitution) of the relationship (e.g. infidelity in marriage)
  • perceived threat to the existence/integrity of the ethnic group (no more group)
  • perceived threat to ‘natural’ dominant status of the ethnic group (no more hierarchy)

We can re-frame key claims of SIT in terms of RMT:

• association of individual worth with that of the group \(\thickapprox\) Communal Sharing
• group worth determined by status comparisons \(\thickapprox\) Authority Ranking

From this perspective, we can try to answer:

• Under what conditions is ethnic violence more likely?
• What individual attributes might make people more likely to participate?

Some of these strategies for status change might lead to ethnic violence:

1. mobility: change category membership
2. social creativity: new dimensions of comparison: what are the features we use to judge group status?
3. social creativity: new evaluative rules: what counts as “better” or “worse” on a given feature?
4. social creativity: new comparison group: what is the other group against which status is compared?
5. social competition: reverse the status of groups being compared

When there are “precipitating events” (as per Horowitz)…

• where in-groups believe their existence is threatened
• where in-groups believe there has been a moral transgression against their status (Wilmington, Muzaffarnagar)

• But remember… this is about perception; where do these perceptions come from?

• People for whom social identity is more important / stakes of ethnic hierarchical relationship are higher:
  • who are ‘lower’ status along other dimensions of social identity (e.g. poor whites in the US South)
• People who are persuaded that transgressions/threats against their group have occurred

Psychological theories, RMT and SIT, generate predictions about:

• when/where we should see more ethnic violence
• who should be involved in ethnic violence

• Wednesday: we will examine some evidence

Psychological theories ability to explain violence…

depend on structural conditions.