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Psychological Factors in Civil Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Ted Gurr
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Until recently many political scientists tended to regard violent civil conflict as a disfigurement of the body politic, neither a significant nor a proper topic for their empirical inquiries. The attitude was in part our legacy from Thomas Hobbes's contention that violence is the negation of political order, a subject fit less for study than for admonition. Moreover, neither the legalistic nor the institutional approaches that dominated traditional political science could provide much insight into group action that was regarded by definition as illegal and the antithesis of institutionalized political life.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1968

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References

1 Forster, Arnold, “Violence on the Fanatical Left and Right,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science CCCLXIV (March 1966), 142Google Scholar.

2 For example, Stone, Lawrence, “Theories of Revolution,” World Politics xviii (January 1966), 159–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, advances the curious argument that collective violence generally cannot be the object of useful theorizing because it is at the same time both pervasive and somehow peripheral.

3 The emphasis on processes is evident in the major theoretical analyses of the “classic” revolutions, including Edwards, Lyford P., The Natural History of Revolutions (Chicago 1927)Google Scholar; Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York 1938)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pettee, George S., The Process of Revolution (New York 1938)Google Scholar; Gottschalk, Louis R., “Causes of Revolution,” American Journal of Sociology L (July 1944), 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hopper, Rex D., “The Revolutionary Process: A Frame of Reference for the Study of Revolutionary Movements,” Social Forces xxvm (March 1950), 270–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 A great many counts of the incidence of civil strife events have recently been reported. Harry Eckstein reports 1,632 “internal wars” in the period 1946–1959 in “On the Etiology of Internal Wars,” History and Theory, iv, No. 2 (1965), 133–63Google Scholar. Rummel and Tanter counted more than 300 “domestic conflict events” per year during the years 1955–1960, including an annual average of 13 guerrilla wars and 21 attempted overthrows of government; see Tanter, Raymond, “Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within Nations, 1955–60: Turmoil and Internal War,” Peace Research Society Papers, iii (1965), 159–84Google Scholar. Most important to the argument that civil strife is a single universe of events are results of Rudolph RummePs factor analysis of 236 socioeconomic and political variables, including nine domestic conflict measures, for a large number of nations. Eight of the conflict measures—e.g., number of riots, of revolutions, of purges, of deaths from group violence—are strongly related to a single factor but not significantly related to any others, strong empirical evidence that they comprise a distinct and interrelated set of events. See Dimensionality of Nations Project: Orthogonally Rotated Factor Tables for 236 Variables, Department of Political Science, Yale University (New Haven, July 1964)Google Scholar, mimeographed.

5 The “French Revolution” was a series of events that would now be characterized as urban demonstrations and riots, peasant uprisings, and a coup d'état. It is called a revolution in retrospect and by virtue of the Due de Liancourt's classic remark to Louis XVI. The American Revolution began with a series of increasingly violent urban riots and small-scale terrorism that grew into a protracted guerrilla war.

6 The universe of concern, civil violence, is formally defined as all collective, nongovernmental attacks on persons or property, resulting in intentional damage to them, that occur within the boundaries of an autonomous or colonial political unit. The terms “civil strife,” “violent civil conflict,” and “civil violence” are used synonymously in this article. The universe subsumes more narrowly defined sets of events such as “internal war,” which Harry Eckstein defines as “any resort to violence within a political order to change its constitution, rulers, or policies” (in “On the Etiology of Internal Wars,” 133), and “revolution,” typically defined in terms of violently accomplished fundamental change in social institutions.

7 Bryant Wedge argues (in a personal communication) that much human aggression, including some civil strife, may arise from a threat-fear-aggression sequence. Leonard Berkowitz, however, proposes that this mechanism can be subsumed by frustration-aggression theory, the inferred sequence being threat (anticipated frustration)-fear-anger-aggression, in Aggression: A Social Psychological Analysis (New York 1962)Google Scholar, chap. 2. It may be conceptually useful to distinguish the two mechanisms; it nonetheless appears likely that most variables affecting the outcome of the frustration-aggression sequence also are operative in the postulated threat-aggression sequence.

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24 The term “instigating” is adapted from the behavioristic terminology of Dollard and others. Instigating variables determine the strength of instigation, i.e., stimulus or motivation, to a particular kind of behavior. Mediating variables refer to intervening conditions, internal or external to the actors, which modify the expression of that behavior.

25 The phrase “relative deprivation” was first used systematically in Samuel A. Stouffer and others, The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life, Vol. I (Princeton 1949), to denote the violation of expectations. J. Stacy Adams reviews the concept's history and some relevant evidence and suggests that feelings of injustice intervene between the condition of relative deprivation and responses to it, in “Inequity in Social Exchange,” in Berkowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Psychology, 267–300. The “injustice” aspect is implicit in m y definition and use of relative deprivation as perceived discrepancy between what people think they will get and what they believe they are entitled to. Th e Stouffer concept has been related to levels of social satisfaction and to anomie, but has not, so far as I know, been associated with the discontent-anger-rage continuum in the frustration-aggression relationship.

26 Aberle, David F., “A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory,” in Thrupp, Sylvia L., ed., Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study (The Hague 1962), 209–14Google Scholar. Bert Hoselitz and An n Willner similarly distinguish between expectations, regarded by the individual as “what is rightfully owed to him,” and aspirations, which represent “that which he would like to have but has not necessarily had or considered his due,” in “Economic Development, Political Strategies, and American Aid,” in Kaplan, Morton A., ed., The Revolution in World Politics (New York 1962), 363Google Scholar.

27 Pp. 175–78.

28 Aberle, 210.

29 The Feierabends use the comparable term “systemic frustration” to describe the balance between “social want satisfaction” and “social want formation.”

30 Hadley Cantril's work offers examples, especially The Pattern of Human Concerns (New Brunswick 1965)Google Scholar.

31 This approach is exemplified by the Feierabends' work and by Russett, Bruce M., “Inequality and Instability: The Relation of Land Tenure to Politics,” World Politics xvi (April 1964), 442–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 The basic postulate of Dollard and others is that “the occurrence of aggressive behavior always presupposes the existence of frustration and, contrariwise, that the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression” (p. 1). It is evident from context and from subsequent articles that this statement was intended in more qualified fashion.

33 Ibid., 28.

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35 Reuben de Hoyos, personal communication.

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38 This general statement of theory is concerned with specification of variables and their effects, not with their content in specific cases; hence the conditions that determine the levels of expectation and changes in those levels are not treated here, nor are the conditions that affect perceptions about value capabilities. For some attempts to generalize about such conditions see Ted Gurr, “The Genesis of Violence: A Multivariate Theory of Civil Strife,” Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1965, esp. chaps. 6–8. For empirical evaluation or application of the theory, it is of course necessary to evaluate in some way levels of expectation in the population (s) studied. Some approaches to evaluation are illustrated in Ted Gurr with Ruttenberg, Charles, The Conditions of Civil Violence: First Tests of a Causal Model, Center of International Studies, Princeton University, Research Monograph No. 28 (Princeton 1967)Google Scholar, and Ted Gurr, “Explanatory Models for Civil Strife Using Aggregate Data,” a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1967.

39 See Berkowitz, Aggression, 53–54.

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42 See, among many other works, Lefebvre, Georges, The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton 1947)Google Scholar, Part II.

43 Value expectations are defined above in terms of the value positions to which men believe they are justifiably entitled; the discussion here assumes that men may also regard as justifiable some types of interference with those value positions.

44 Pastore, Nicholas, “The Role of Arbitrariness in the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology XLVII (July 1952), 728–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kregarman, John J. and Worchel, Philip, “Arbitrariness of Frustration and Aggression,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology LXIII (July 1961), 183–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 The argument is that people comply “to gain both the symbolic rewards of governmental action and the actual rewards with which government originally associated itself” and rationalize compliance with “the feeling that the regime is a morally appro priate agent of control...” (Merelman, Richard M., “Learning and Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review, LX [September 1966], 551)Google Scholar. The argument applies equally well to compliance, including acceptance of deprivation, with the demands of other social institutions.

48 Rostow, Walt W., British Economy of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1948)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

47 Rudé, George, “Prices, Wages, and Popular Movements in Paris During the French Revolution,” Economic History Review, vi (1954), 246–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Crowd in History, 1730–1848 (New York 1964)Google Scholar, chap. 7.

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53 There is a threshold effect with reference to physical well-being. If life itself is the value threatened and the threat is imminent, the emoional response tends to be fear or panic; once the immediate threat is past, anger against the source of threat tends to manifest itself again. See n. 7 above, and Berkowitz, Aggression, 42–46.

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59 Ridker, 15; Olson, Mancur Jr., “Growth as a Destabilizing Force,” Journal of Economic History xxiii (December 1963), 550–51Google Scholar.

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62 For summaries of findings, see Walters, Richard H., “Implications of Laboratory Studies of Aggression for the Control and Regulation of Violence,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science CCCLXIV (March 1966), 6072CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McNeil, Elton D., “Psychology and Aggression,” fournal of Conflict Resolution iii (September 1959), 225–31Google Scholar.

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65 Janos, Andrew, The Seizure of Power: A Study of Force and Popular Consent, Center of International Studies, Princeton University, Research Monograph No. 16 (Princeton 1964), 5Google Scholar.

68 See, for example, Dahlke, H. O., “Race and Minority Riots: A Study in the Typology of Violence,” Social Forces xxx (May 1952), 419–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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73 Thibaut, J. W. and Coules, J., “The Role of Communication in the Reduction of Interpersonal Hostility,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, XLVII (October 1952). 770–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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78 See n. 48 above.

79 Rudé, The Crowd in History, chap. 5. The high levels of verbal aggression directed against the employers suggest that displacement was involved, not a perception of the machines rather than employers as sources of deprivation. In the Luddite riots, fear of retribution for direct attacks on the owners, contrasted with the frequent lack of sanctions against attacks on the machines, was the probable cause of object generalization. In the Madagascar and Angola cases structural and conceptual factors were responsible: the African rebels were not accessible to attack but local Africans were seen as like them and hence as potential or clandestine rebels.

80 Some such evidence is summarized in Berkowitz, “The Concept of Aggressive Drive,” 325–27.

81 A critical and qualifying review of evidence to this effect is Abney, F. Glenn and Hill, Larry B., “Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election,” American Political Science Review LX (December 1966), 974–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Kornhauser, 161. For interview evidence on the motives of protest voting, see Cantril, Hadley, The Politics of Despair (New York 1958)Google Scholar.

83 Representative studies are Cohn; Fernandez, James W., “African Religious Movements: Types and Dynamics,” Journal of Modern African Studies, ii, No. 4 (1964), 531–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lanternari, Vittorio, The Religions of the Oppressed (New York 1963)Google Scholar.

84 Summarized in Walters.

85 Berkowitz, Leonard, “Aggressive Cues in Aggressive Behavior and Hostility Catharsis,” Psychological Review LXXI (March 1964), 104–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quotation from 106.

86 Rudé, The Crowd in History, 19–45.

87 Hobsbawm, E. J., Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels, 2nd ed. (Glencoe 1959), 6364Google Scholar.

88 Chap. 5.

89 P. 31.

90 Bon, Gustave Le, The Psychology of Revolution (London 1913)Google Scholar; Sorokin, Pitirim, The Sociology of Revolutions (Philadelphia 1925)Google Scholar.

91 Representative studies include French, J. R. P. Jr., “The Disruption and Cohesion of Groups,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology xxxvi (July 1941), 361–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pepitone, A. and Reichling, G., “Group Cohesiveness and the Expression of Hostility,” Human Relations, viii, No. 3 (1955), 327–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stotland, Ezra, “Peer Groups and Reactions to Power Figures,” in Cartwright, Dorwin, ed., Studies in Social Power (Ann Arbor 1959), 5368Google Scholar.

92 Pp. 272–75, quotation from 273.

93 Kerr, Clark and Siegel, Abraham, “The Isolated Mass and the Integrated Individual: An International Analysis of the Inter-Industry Propensity to Strike,” in Korn-hauser, Arthur and others, eds., Industrial Conflict (New York 1954), 189212Google Scholar.

94 Meier, Norman C. and others, “An Experimental Approach to the Study of Mob Behavior,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology xxxvi (October 1941), 506–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Wada, George and Davies, James C., “Riots and Rioters,” Western Political Quarterly x (December 1957), 864–74Google Scholar.

95 See Walters; Polansky, Norman and others, “An Investigation of Behavioral Contagion in Groups,” Human Relations, iii, No. 3 (1950), 319–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Berkowitz, Leonard and Geen, Russell G., “Film Violence and the Cue Properties of Available Targets,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology iii (June 1966), 525–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 Rudé, The Crowd in History; Mendras, Henri and Tavernier, Yves, “Les Manifestations de juin 1961,” Revue française des sciences politiques xii (September 1962), 647–71Google Scholar.

97 Representative typologies are proposed by Johnson, Revolution and the Social System, 26–68; Rummel, Rudolph J., “Dimensions of Conflict Behavior Within and Between Nations,” Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research, viii (1963), 2526Google Scholar; and Harry Eckstein, “Internal Wars: A Taxonomy,” unpubl. (1960).

98 Two summary articles on these factor analyses are Rummel, Rudolph J., “A Field Theory of Social Action With Application to Conflict Within Nations,” Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research, x (1965), 183204Google Scholar; and Tanter. What I call internal war is referred to in these sources as subversion; I label conspiracy what these sources call revolution. My terminology is, I believe, less ambiguous and more in keeping with general scholarly usage.

99 Seton-Watson, Hugh, “Twentieth Century Revolutions,” Political Quarterly XXII (July 1951), 258Google Scholar.

100 For example, it has been used by Bryant Wedge to analyze and compare interview materials gathered in the study of two Latin American revolutions, in “Student Participation in Revolutionary Violence: Brazil, 1964, and Dominican Republic, 1965,” a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1967.

101 Studies based on this theoretical model and using cross-national aggregate data include Ted Gurr, New Error-Compensated Measures for Comparing Nations: Some Correlates of Civil Strife, Center of International Studies, Princeton University, Research Monograph No. 25 (Princeton 1966); Gurr with Ruttenberg; Gurr, “Explanatory Models for Civil Strife”; and Gurr, “Why Urban Disorders? Perspectives From the Comparative Study of Civil Strife,” American Behavioral Scientist (forthcoming).