Lecture 1: introduction to collective violence

Question 1

What is collective violence

Answer 1

Collective violence is violence engaged in by groups to achieve a practical, social or political aim. The group is broadly defined, and can mean either spontaneous groups (crowds), pre-existing groups, or individuals who act on behalf of groups.

Thus, the definitions should contain these 3 things:
1. Involvement of groups and group membership.
2. The violence is the response to a threat/ conflict.
3. It has to have a functional component: to achieve something (instrumental)

Question 2

Instrumental violence

Answer 2

Goal-oriented violence/ using violence to achieve some goal. You engage in violence because it gets you something you want (money, drugs, power etc.)

Question 3

Performative/ symbolic violence

Answer 3

Violence as performance (expressive in nature). Committing violence just to commit violence (violence as an end in itself). This is usually audience-oriented, because it sends a message to the audience seeing it (like who is the toughest gang).

Collective violence often has more performative/ symbolic components, because there is an extra audience when violence is committed by a group.

Examples: beheadings within terrorist violence.

Question 4

Different views on what violence is:

Answer 4

• Criminology: it’s a type of crime or transgression.
• Sociology: it’s a consequence of (unfair) social organisation.
• Social psychology: it’s a type of social behaviour.

Question 5

Collective violence in history

Answer 5

Collective violence has declined strongly over the centuries, and is LESS common in state-societies, than in non-state societies. In state-societies it was brought under control by legal institutions, police and social norms.