Collective Violence

Collective violence is a something that takes place all the time. Whether it be a riot, a
revolution, or a gang, people participate in collective violence everyday. Barkan’s and
Snowden’s Collective Violence provides the reader with a comprehensive look at the
theories behind this phenomenon and applies them to the examples that can be found in
societies across the globe. This paper will look at how well the book explains collective
violence and how the examples provided give the reader insight to the world around
them.

This book is basically an attempt to explain the occurrence of collective violence. The
theory that provides the foundation for the proper evaluation of violent acts and violent
groups is giving first. The following chapters of the book address the various forms of
collective violence that take shape throughout the world. In each chapter, the authors
provide some examples of each form of collective violence, and try to explain them with
the use of theory. The major forms of collective violence that are discussed are riots,
revolutions, terrorism, cult, militia, and hate groups. Although the author provides the
theories in the beginning of the book, the reader is left to apply the theories to the
examples provided. This provides the book with some structure while also allowing the
reader some freedom to decide which theory applies best. This is an important aspect of
the book. By allowing a wide range of explanations for all the forms of collective
violence, the reader is given an understanding that such complex issues are difficult to
explain. Also, there is usually more than one reason that leads to a group becoming
violent.

There are five basic theories outlined in the book. These theories provide the framework
for understanding the events that are discussed in later chapters. The first theory is
presented is the Irrational and Rational approaches. Irrationality was the theory that
people do not understand the consequences of their actions when in large groups or
crowds. Rationality, discussed by Turner and Killian, is the belief that people that come
together in groups begin to develop an emergent norm. This is the expectation that
something violent may occur, but in a calculated manner. Psychologists such as Freud,
Pareto, and LeBon all researched about irrationality. However, I do not think the point
was well argued. It also seemed like this theory did not explain any of the collective
violence in the later chapters. There is one exception though. The chapter on riots could
be seen in light of this theory.

There were several examples of different riots in American and British history. In the
earlier days of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S., riots were so common that the time
was named the “riot era”. This is an example of Rationality in rioting. It is obvious that
people who were being mistreated in factories planned on rioting and disrupting their
boss in order to make their point. This makes the theory of Rationality a little more
believable. This example of rioting contrasts with the riots of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.
The examples provided by the authors do not support this theory at all. Most of the more
recent riots have taken place in urban areas with extremely high poverty. In this case the
people are just as violent and motivated, but they have no cause. There is generally no
reason for these kinds of riots except for the fact that people are unhappy. This provides
support for the Irrationality theory.

The second theory discussed was possibly the most useful theory is the theory. This is the
theory of Frustration-Aggression, or Relative Deprivation. This theory deals with trying
to explain uprisings and violent action due to a person’s social standing. The theory has a
few requirements. It says that a person first sees their place in society and is unhappy
with it, because he or she sees the others around them living in better conditions. This
leads to frustration. If a person remains in these conditions, or if they worsen, the
frustration becomes worse. The theory then says that when a person is exposed to these
conditions for an extended period of time, this could lead to aggressive behavior. This is
especially true when a large group of people begin to feel the same way about their place
in society.

This theory can be extremely useful for understanding revolutions. The book gives three
good examples of revolutions that began from peasant uprisings. I feel that the book well
in illustrating the causes of all three peasant revolutions as they apply to Relative
Deprivation. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was started by thousands of peasants
who’d had enough of living in poverty while the government continued to live well. The
eventual overthrow of the government was then a direct result of the feeling of frustration
that led directly to aggressive behavior.

The third theory discussed was about the effect of social attachments. This theory deals
with the influence of a person’s interaction with society on their potential for membership
in violent groups. This theory, explained by William Kornhauser, says that people who
have no attachments to society are more likely to join a group in order to have a sense of
belonging. I found this theory to be especially useful in dealing with cult membership.
This theory could also be applied to militias and hate groups as well though. The example
about the Heaven’s Gate cult makes a clear connection between cults and the social
attachment theory. Also the Branch Davidian cult example makes a good case for the
same theory. But while the thory of social attachments is good for explaining cult
membership, it does not do much for militias and hate groups. These two forms of
collective violence have a lot in common with terrorism.

The fourth theory is Smelser’s Structural Strain theory. There are many factors that must
be present for this theory to work. The main factors of this theory are structural
conduciveness, structural strain, generalized beliefs, precipitating factors, and
mobilization for action. Structural condusiveness is simply a society’s government.
Structural strain is any given problem that a society faces that the public must deal with.
Generalized belief refers to people’s behavior and what is considered the norm. A
precipitating factor is an event that triggers an episode. Mobilization for action It was
presented in a clear fashion, but the theory itself seemed confusing. It was also difficult to
apply to any of the forms of collective violence. This theory could possibly be applied to
revolutions if the reader bothered to outline all of aspects of the theory. Still the theory of
Frustration-Aggression seemed to better explain how revolutions begin. It would have
been helpful for the author to directly apply this theory to an example of collective
violence in order make it less confusing as a whole. Although it was clearly stated, it was
difficult to put to use at all.

The fifth theory is the theory of Resource Mobilization. This theory has a few basic
elements. It says that collective action is more likely when a group’s resources are
mobilized, such as time, money, and communications. This theory can be used to explain
a few forms of collective violence.

Terrorism is one form of collective violence that can be used with this theory. There are
four basic forms of terrorism that are discussed in the chapter: transnational, state,
vigilante, and insurgent. All of these kinds of terrorism require the mobilization of vast
resources in order to have a successful operation. Even state terrorism uses the resources
of the people in order to keep down the population. The KKK is a good example of how
this theory applies to vigilante terrorism as well. But for any kind of terrorism to take
place, it takes a lot of planning and time. People can not organize without several
resources. This theory emphasizes the importance of those resources. I feel that this
theory is the most important to look at, especially considering the events on September
11.

This theory is the most important because it could provide some of the ways to stop
terrorism for good. By looking at the roots of this theory, the police and law enforcement
would be able to look at the causes and roots of terrorism. Overall, this book gives the
reader a good look at the different forms of collective violence and some possible reasons
as to why it occurs.