Violence - Part 1

Working with the Causal Model of Political Violence

A “General Theory” of Political Violence:

Where does the reading fit?

Psychological pre-conditions

• Anomie (sociology – Durkheim)
• Frustration – Aggression (Psychology)
• Cognitive Dissonance (Psychology)
• Contagion (Social-Psych)
• Relative Deprivation (Social-Psych; PoliSci ,Soc)
  • RD is rooted in perception (the relationship between expectation and actual capacity
    • Aspirational
    • Decremental
    • J-curve

Biological and socio-biological

• Charles Darwin – 19th century claim of species competition and “survival of the fittest” – assuming such occurs from triumph, usually via force
• Are we instinctually (primordially) violent? Conrad Lorenz thought so; most anthropologists prove not so…we have lived too long without murder or organized violence
• Biological determinism: Suggests that as human animals, we are genetically determined to be violent
• Modified version: Some are genetically “predisposed” to violence
  

Findings to date

1. There is a psychobiology/or a psycho-biochemistry to this – and it is “selective”.
   • Chemical imbalances are sufficient conditions to lead (stimulate) some to engage in violence
   • When chemical mix with social and psychological stimuli, there is a high likelihood of violence
   • In all situations these can be limited by social constraints
2. “Tougher” finding relates to biochemical “high” derived from engaging in violence, the narcotic effect

Where does variation by gender come in?

• Reality of testosterone
• The rest is learned (socialization)
• Does “mother instinct” drive some under poverty or despair to violence?

Psycho-social ‘innate’ adjustment

Robert Jay Lifton, in “The Nazi Doctors”, goes further than this....grotesque or large scale violence must have a full duality, with perpetrators operating in a different world: they must engage in “doubling”.

Anthropological

• Excerpts from Foreign Affairs article of Jan/Feb ’06 by Robert M Sapolsky, “ A Natural History of Peace”.
• What does the reading have to add? Consider the essays from Eller.

Application: Brainstorm/discuss solutions

Frustrated with recent explanations of political violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere, the U.S. Government has issued a “call for proposals” which will examine “new and dynamic concepts which help explain problems of on-going violence in society”.  A friend working in the White House has called and asked for input.  Using Eller, et al. as a guide, what should we send her?

Economic pre-conditions

• Economic structure of dominance-submission in relationships
• Real conditions filtered by perception (relative deprivation!)
• Competitive economic units (class)
• The societal conflict trap of Collier’s, “ Breaking the Conflict Trap”

Social conditions: What “fires us up”

• Justifications: utilitarian vs. normative
• Legitimacy
• Socialization
• Politicization
• Political symbols
• Support mechanisms: structural, cultural
• Resources, ideology, release mechanisms