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According to anthropological philosopher René Girard (1923–2015), an important human adaptation is our propensity to victimize or scapegoat. He argued that other traits upon which human sociality depends would have destabilized primate dominance-based social hierarchies, making conspecific conflict a limiting factor in hominin evolution. He surmised that a novel mechanism for inhibiting intragroup conflict must have emerged contemporaneously with our social traits, and speculated that this was the tendency to spontaneously unite around the victimization of single individuals. He described an unconscious tendency to both ascribe blame and to imbue the accused with a sacred mystique. This emotionally cathartic scapegoat mechanism, he claimed, enhanced social cohesion, and was the origin of religion, mythology, sacrifice, ritual, cultural institutions, and social norms. It would have functioned by modifying the beliefs and behaviors of the group, rather than of the accused, making the act of accusation more important than the substance. This article aims to examine the empirical evidence for Girard's claims, and argues that the scapegoat hypothesis has commonalities with several other evolutionary hypotheses, including Wrangham's execution hypothesis on self-domestication, Dunbar's hypothesis on the role of storytelling in maintaining group stability, and DeScioli and Kurzban's hypothesis on the role of non-consequentialist morality in curtailing conflict. Potential implications of the scapegoat hypothesis for evolutionary psychology and psychiatry are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on scapegoating argues that this crisis communication strategy is often ineffective because it can be perceived as an unfair attempt at shifting blame. In contrast, a few studies have shown that scapegoating can be effective by increasing the perceived ethicality of the sender relative to the target that is presented as responsible for wrongdoing. Reconciling these inconsistent findings, we show that the relative effectiveness of scapegoating depends on the perceptions of the sender and of the target. Our findings show that both the positioning of the sender as an underdog or a top dog and the positive or negative CSR record of the target contribute to explaining the effectiveness of scapegoating. Following a crisis, scapegoating appears to be most effective when the sender is an underdog and the target has a negative CSR record. The effectiveness of scapegoating for an underdog is however reduced when the target has a positive CSR record. At the opposite end, scapegoating might backfire when the sender is a top dog that attacks a target with a positive CSR record. Finally, when a top dog attacks a target with a negative CSR record, scapegoating reduces negative word of mouth even though this effect does not appear to be mediated by perceived ethicality. The study contributes to research on scapegoating communications and on the consequences of an underdog positioning and a positive CSR record for companies trying to manage the negative fallout from an ethical crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the representation of violence, revenge, and scapegoating in three Indonesian short stories, i.e. “Kuli Kontrak” [The Contract Coolie] by Mochtar Lubis, “Tukang Cukur” [The Barber] by Budi Darma, and “Akhir Perjalanan Gozo Yoshimasu” [The End of Gozo Yoshimasu’s Journey] by Sori Siregar. Content analysis method is applied to read the short stories in light of René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and sacpegoating. The study reveals that first, violence as repercussion of mimetic desires and rivalry can occur between individuals, individuals to groups, and groups to individuals; and violence is contagious and spreads quickly. Second, revenge which is a direct impact of rivalry in the three short stories takes place on behalf of women, bloodshed, and power; and the most corrosive is power. Third, the scapegoat mechanism in these short stories has different causes and implications; while the similarity is that the scapegoat manifests in the defeated and marginalized personas. They are sacrificed to break the chains of violence and to bring peace. Abstrak Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengamati representasi kekerasan, balas dendam, dan pengambinghitaman dalam tiga cerpen Indonesia, yaitu “Kuli Kontrak” karya Mochtar Lubis, “Tukang Cukur” karya Budi Darma, dan “Akhir Perjalanan Gozo Yoshimasu” karya Sori Siregar. Metode content analysis digunakan dalam penelitian ini dengan terang teori hasrat mimesis dan kambing hitam dari René Girard. Penelitian ini menghasilkan tiga temuan. Pertama, kekerasan sebagai buntut hasrat mimesis dapat terjadi antarindividu, inividu terhadap kelompok, dan kelompok terhadap individu. Kekerasan bersifat menular serta menyebar dengan cepat. Kedua, aksi balas dendam yang merupakan dampak langsung rivalitas dalam ketiga cerpen terjadi atas nama perempuan, kucuran darah, dan kekuasaan. Dari ketiga hal tersebut yang paling korosif adalah kekuasaan. Ketiga, mekanisme kambing hitam pada ketiga cerpen memiliki penyebab dan siratan yang berbeda-beda, sedangkan persamaannya adalah kambing hitam mewujud dalam diri tokoh-tokoh yang kalah dan terpinggirkan. Mereka dikorbankan untuk memutus rantai kekerasan sehingga dapat membawa perdamaian.

From 1945 to 1950, a number of unexplained disappearances occurred in the vicinity of Bennington, Vermont. During the same period, the author Shirley Jackson moved to North Bennington, while her friend Kenneth Burke (a colleague of her husband at Bennington College) published two pivotal works of theory, A Grammar of Motives (1945) and A Rhetoric of Motives (1950). Although the disappearances have previously been noted as a context of Jackson’s fiction, especially the short story “The Missing Girl”, this article applies a Burkeian lens to analyse how Jackson used the disappearances to explore the effects of what Burke calls “the hierarchal psychosis” on young women and rural New England society.

The scapegoating of 'angry black women' achieves the paradoxical feat of ascribing power while simultaneously taking it away. This article aims to highlight how women of colour may be scapegoated as a result of intersecting, deep-rooted, and malignant forces operating within the (un)conscious, with a particular focus on racism. A lack of relevant literature is identified so to better understand the causation and effects of this phenomenon, group analytic concepts are cross-pollinated with black feminist, white feminist, and black political theory. It is suggested that conductors could do more to manage destructive forces in groups and so three anti-racist approaches are proposed. Concluding thoughts note that if our groups are permeated by the social, the same may be said of our theoretical framework. It is hoped that by consulting other specialist disciplines and integrating their knowledge into group analytic training and professional practice, our aims of being more inclusive, accessible, and diverse become ever-more attainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies faced with a crisis sometimes blame others in their communications, when they feel that responsibility for the negative event lies elsewhere. Research has argued that stakeholders often react negatively to this type of message, because they perceive them as an unfair attempt to deny responsibility. In four experiments, examining blame directed at an employee and a supplier, we complement existing research by demonstrating that blame-giving messages can be persuasive in certain circumstances. Blame-giving communications can improve perceptions of firm ethicality more than apologies or an absence of corporate communication. This effect, in turn, reduces negative word-of-mouth intentions. The study identifies several boundary conditions for this effect. For blame-giving to be effective, a credible third party needs to identify who is responsible for wrongdoing, and the company needs to use vivid communication with detailed information about the culprit. Furthermore, blame-giving can backfire: when stakeholders doubt the company's honesty, this type of messaging is seen as manipulative. The study contributes to a developing research stream on the relative effectiveness of different types of crisis communications by demonstrating that, in certain circumstances, blame-giving messages are more persuasive than apologies. Moreover, our analysis offers guidelines on how to design these messages to make them acceptable to stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a conflict a pre-service physics teacher experienced while completing a teaching practicum at a religious high school that supported creationism. As a result of the conflict, the pre-service teacher was scapegoated by the staff and students at the school. An analysis of the projective dynamics involved in this conflict are explored including scapegoating, psychic inflation, fanaticism for science, and what was constellated in the pre-service teacher's personal, familial, and cultural unconscious. In examining the pre-service teacher's unconscious, it will be suggested that religion is part of the pre-service teacher's repressed shadow and the cooperating/mentor teacher's religious projections helped to constellate this shadow element. By examining the conflicts that arise between pre-service teachers and their cooperating teachers as a result of psychodynamics and differing worldviews, educators can begin to understand how analytical psychology may be applied so that such conflicts may be depotentiated in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large carnivores are ecologically important, but their behaviour frequently put them in conflict with humans. I suggest that a spatial co-occurrence of suitable habitat and relatively poor socioeconomic conditions in rural areas may contribute to inflated human–carnivore conflict. Here, I test if there is potential for such an explanation for the human–wolf conflict in Sweden, a conflict that is arguably not congruent with the costs and damages imposed by the wolf population. I found negative correlations between wolf habitat suitability within Swedish municipalities and indicators of their relative socioeconomic conditions. I argue that geographic socioeconomic inequality may contribute to the Swedish human-wolf conflict, partly by the use of wolves as symbols for socioeconomic dissent and partly by using them as scapegoats for socioeconomic conditions. Therefore, regional policies aimed at alleviating geographic socioeconomic inequities may create a more favourable environment for solving the human-wolf conflict in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scapegoating – attributing inordinate blame for a negative outcome to a target individual or group – is considered an important driver of discrimination by psychologists, but has received little attention by economists. This paper helps fill the gap by providing evidence for scapegoating in a natural setting. Using data on three million driving tests held in Israel, I find that an increase in the number of unrelated traffic accident fatalities leads driving testers to discriminate against out-group students. Scapegoating characterizes all groups of testers – Jewish and Arab, male and female – and works to increase ethnic in-group bias and decrease gender out-group bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel Putri Cina or The Chinese Princess by Sindhunata builds on the intertextuality of various texts such as myths, chronicles, history, and pop culture. In the light of René Girard’s theory of desire, revenge, and scapegoating, this study aims (1) to show the inter-relationship among the texts in question; and (2) placing this novel in the work of World Literature. Through qualitative research methods and close reading techniques, this study finds out that Putri Cina recounts the history of conflicts to promote peace rather than revenge. The novel narrates such conflicts as the war between the descendants of the Javanese kings; the feud between the Chinese and Javanese people in colonial time; and the May 1998 ethnic riots in Indonesia. It concludes that it is necessary to circulate the narrative of the Chinese Princess as a peace ambassador in World Literature through the process of adaptation and translation. In a world prone to conflict, literary works can be effective agents of transformation.

For years, violence against doctors and healthcare workers has been a growing social issue in China. In a recent series of studies, we provided evidence for a motivated scapegoating account of this violence. Specifically, individuals who feel that the course of their (or their family member's) illness is a threat to their sense of control are more likely to express motivation to aggress against healthcare providers. Drawing on existential theory, we propose that blaming and aggressing against a single individual represents a culturally afforded scapegoating mechanism in China. However, in an era of healthcare crisis (i.e., the global COVID-19 pandemic), it is essential to understand cultural variation in scapegoating in the context of healthcare. We therefore undertook two cross-cultural studies examining how people in the United States and China use different scapegoating responses to re-assert a sense of control during medical uncertainty. One study was conducted prior to the pandemic and allowed us to make an initial validating and exploratory investigation of the constructs of interest. The second study, conducted during the pandemic, was confirmatory and investigated mediation path models. Across the two studies, consistent evidence emerged that, both in response to COVID-related and non-COVID-related illness scenarios, Chinese (relative to U.S.) individuals are more likely to respond by aggressing against an individual doctor, while U.S. (relative to Chinese) individuals are more likely to respond by scapegoating the medical industry/system. Further, Study 2 suggests these culture effects are mediated by differential patterns of primary and secondary control-seeking.

For years, violence against doctors and healthcare workers has been a growing social issue in China. In a recent series of studies, we provided evidence for a motivated scapegoating account of this violence. Specifically, individuals who feel that the course of their (or their family member's) illness is a threat to their sense of control are more likely to express motivation to aggress against healthcare providers. Drawing on existential theory, we propose that blaming and aggressing against a single individual represents a culturally afforded scapegoating mechanism in China. However, in an era of healthcare crisis (i.e., the global COVID-19 pandemic), it is essential to understand cultural variation in scapegoating in the context of healthcare. We therefore undertook two cross-cultural studies examining how people in the United States and China use different scapegoating responses to re-assert a sense of control during medical uncertainty. One study was conducted prior to the pandemic and allowed us to make an initial validating and exploratory investigation of the constructs of interest. The second study, conducted during the pandemic, was confirmatory and investigated mediation path models. Across the two studies, consistent evidence emerged that, both in response to COVID-related and non-COVID-related illness scenarios, Chinese (relative to U.S.) individuals are more likely to respond by aggressing against an individual doctor, while U.S. (relative to Chinese) individuals are more likely to respond by scapegoating the medical industry/system. Further, Study 2 suggests these culture effects are mediated by differential patterns of primary and secondary control-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though populist politicians deem the terrorist threat as a reason for restrictive immigration policies, existing studies neglect to explore the systematic connection between immigration and security. This study offers a novel theoretical argument about the effect of terrorism on immigration policy and then conducts a first-cut empirical analysis. Based on a battery of statistical tests performed against pooled panel data on immigrant-receiving countries that are attractive to low-skilled workers due to high wages, this study shows evidence that terrorist threats are actually unrelated to restrictive immigration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The term 'sexual harassment' (sekushuaru harasumento, commonly abbreviated as sekuhara) became recognized in Japan only in 1989. The aim of this study was to gather perceptions on what Japanese undergraduate students understand by the term 'sexual harassment'. Design: Responses were elicited from 90 freshman and sophomore students attending a national university in Japan, to the question 'What is sexual harassment' in the class room setting. The answer time was limited to 5 minutes. Results: Both men and women students considered body touch (mostly by men on women) and offensive sexual comments by men to women as the top priority behavioral items of sexual harassment. One sixth among the 90 responses formed a cluster grouping having subtle humor. Conclusions: A definitive understanding of 'what is sexual harassment?' appears hazy in the minds of young Japanese university students. This situation need to be remedied, because innocent teachers can be accused and charged of sexual harassment erroneously for teaching items such as English slang- vulgar vocabulary, limerick poetry, classic art of Renaissance Masters, reproductive physiology and clinical cases featuring women's diseases like polymastia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 (C19) experienced prejudice and blame for the pandemic. Because people vastly overestimate C19 risks, we examined whether these negative judgements could be partially understood as a form of scapegoating (ie, blaming a group unfairly for an undesirable outcome) and whether political ideology (previously shown to shape risk perceptions in the USA) moderates scapegoating of the unvaccinated. We grounded our analyses in scapegoating literature and risk perception during C19. We obtained support for our speculations through two vignette-based studies conducted in the USA in early 2022. We varied the risk profiles (age, prior infection, comorbidities) and vaccination statuses of vignette characters (eg, vaccinated, vaccinated without recent boosters, unvaccinated, unvaccinated-recovered), while keeping all other information constant. We observed that people hold the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated) more responsible for negative pandemic outcomes and that political ideology moderated these effects: liberals (vs conservatives) were more likely to scapegoat the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated), even when presented with information challenging the culpability of the unvaccinated known at the time of data collection (eg, natural immunity, availability of vaccines, time since last vaccination). These findings support a scapegoating explanation for a specific group-based prejudice that emerged during the C19 pandemic. We encourage medical ethicists to examine the negative consequences of significant C19 risk overestimation among the public. The public needs accurate information about health issues. That may involve combating misinformation that overestimates and underestimates disease risk with similar vigilance to error., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

In early 2020, when COVID-19 began to spread in the United States, many Twitter users called it the "Chinese virus," blaming racial outgroups for the pandemic. I collected tweets containing the "Chinese virus" derivatives posted from March to August 2020 by users within the United States and created a data set with 141,290 tweets published by 50,695 users. I calculated the ratio of users who supported the racist naming of COVID-19 per county and merged Twitter data with the county-level census. Multilevel regression models show that counties with higher COVID-19 mortality or infection rates have more support for the racist naming. Second, the mortality and infection rates effects are stronger in counties with faster minority growth. Moreover, it is mainly in poor counties that minority growth enlarges the effects of infection and mortality rates. These findings relate to the theories on disease-induced xenophobia and the debate between conflict and contact theories.

In this article, the authors bring two personal journeys together: one author’s liberationist journey, sparked by a search for justice and liberation in the slums of Guatemala City, and the other’s lifelong commitment to practical theology and spatial justice in South Africa. A practical theology of liberation is the result of life experiences in countries of the Global South amidst the search for justice and liberation. The worlds that come together in this article are René Girard’s mimetic theory, liberation theology and practical theology. This article raises the question of the cross-contextuality of practical theology and the theological application of mimetic theory to develop innovative theological methodologies that respond to the collective woundedness of the urban context in the Global South. Contribution: The main contribution of this article is the use of three seemingly different theological approaches in conjunction. This article opens the door to inform practical theology with René Girard’s mimetic theory and liberation theology.

This paper characterizes the successful civil lawsuits brought by sub-national units of government in the US against multinational pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of public expenditures (goods and services) incurred as they attempt to manage the ‘opioid crisis,’ as a scapegoating strategy whose function is to deflect attention from the governance failures that allow corporate colonization of the public sphere and rescue the moribund privileges of whiteness enjoyed by the ‘blue collar aristocracy’ until neoliberal globalization rendered them obsolete. Recent drops in white life expectancy, which are associated with chronic diseases and non-medical opioid use, map onto high unemployment and under-employment rates in formerly prosperous communities, now fodder for populist political campaigns. Criminalizing the pharmaceutical companies and executives for peddling prescription medicines to inadequately trained (in the treatment of pain) physicians — some of whom prescribed opioids inappropriately to (majority white) patients/consumers, some of whom developed addictions, and/or poisoning following non-medical use or consumption with alcohol or illicit substances —medicalizes the white opioid crisis and identifies consumers as victims. This distinguishes them from the Americans of color whose ‘drug use’ has been criminalized, who have been disproportionately arrested, and sentenced to long periods of incarceration that entail the loss of civil and political rights, including the right to vote. White elites staked out the ‘color line’ before the Founding, perpetuating it through various scapegoating and ‘shapeshifting’ strategies to the present day. The lawsuits are only the most recent iteration of a morally bankrupt carceral state.

In this article, the authors bring two personal journeys together: one author's liberationist journey, sparked by a search for justice and liberation in the slums of Guatemala City, and the other's lifelong commitment to practical theology and spatial justice in South Africa. A practical theology of liberation is the result of life experiences in countries of the Global South amidst the search for justice and liberation. The worlds that come together in this article are René Girard's mimetic theory, liberation theology and practical theology. This article raises the question of the cross-contextuality of practical theology and the theological application of mimetic theory to develop innovative theological methodologies that respond to the collective woundedness of the urban context in the Global South. Contribution: The main contribution of this article is the use of three seemingly different theological approaches in conjunction. This article opens the door to inform practical theology with René Girard's mimetic theory and liberation theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration to South Africa is commonly depicted as a crisis by government officials, the media and members of the public. This article critically examines the representation of migration to South Africa as a crisis and deconstructs this notion through an examination of the context of migration to South Africa and the reception non-nationals receive upon arrival. While structural forces in nearby countries have caused an increase in migration to South Africa, the South African government's own failures to respond to domestic, political, economic and social crises have led to the scapegoating of migrants by public officials. The construction of migration as a crisis by public officials reinforces existing widespread xenophobic sentiments amongst the public and has enabled a xenophobic response to international migration. This is exemplified in frequent xenophobic protests and attacks by members of the public, the lack of protection of foreigners by government officials, the exclusion of foreigners from basic government services, and the country's harsh immigration system and use of arrest and deportation to regulate migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are increasingly exposed to environmental threat in the form of "slow-scale" disaster, such as the water contamination at Flint, Michigan. Little is known about the role of place attachment in determining responses to such threats. The present research tests a comprehensive model linking place attachment style to patterns of environmental threat response. Two highly powered surveys (total N = 603) test this model in the context of a water contamination scenario. Across both studies, we find that a more communal and traditionalist place inherited style predicts defensive denial of the threat and compensatory identification with spiritual powers, while a more agentic and cosmopolitan place discovered style predicts identification with responsible institutions and collective action motivation. Place relativity style —characterized by high mobility and lack of attachment—predicts scapegoating of responsible institutions, especially when the threat occurs in a location other than one's neighborhood (Study 2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the Black Death pogroms to shed light on the factors determining when a minority group will face persecution. Negative shocks increase the likelihood that minorities are persecuted. But, as shocks become more severe, the persecution probability decreases if there are economic complementarities between majority and minority groups. The effects of shocks on persecutions are thus ambiguous. We compile city-level data on Black Death mortality and Jewish persecutions. At an aggregate level, scapegoating increases the probability of a persecution. However, cities which experienced higher plague mortality were less likely to persecute. Furthermore, for a given mortality shock, persecutions were more likely where people were more inclined to believe conspiracy theories that blamed the Jews for the plague and less likely where Jews played an important economic role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ministers are faced with intense account-giving pressures when things go wrong under their watch. While ministers carry hierarchical responsibility for the behavior of their top administrators, ministers have incentive to shift blame and scapegoat them after policy failures. This is likely since political-administrative relations in most parliamentary systems have become more managerial. However, there is little empirical research regarding the formal and informal accountability rules that govern ministerial and administrative accountability after failures. This article compares two parliamentary systems with ministerial responsibility: the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) and the Netherlands. NSW political-administrative relations have become more managerial than Dutch ones. The comparison highlights two important ethical constraints for ministers: (a) formal rules guiding political-administrative relations; and (b) informal norms regarding appropriate ministerial account-giving. While hierarchically oriented accountability rules and informal (parliamentary) norms buttress Dutch top administrators, these buttresses are less patent in the NSW case. Subsequently, while Dutch ministers have multiple times taken "sacrificial responsibility" for policy failures, NSW top administrators often have to front the media and have taken the fall for their ministers. To conclude, formal accountability rules and informal rules-in-use make ministers take the heat instead of shifting the blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine how consumers respond to betrayal of their trust in brands, we surveyed 2156 consumers in nine metropolitan centres in China following the 2008 melamine contamination crisis. Drawing on psychological drivers of scapegoating and attribution theory, we investigate how early information and the perceived involvement in a multi-brand crisis and attribution factors influence scapegoat effects. The survey results reveal that the first accused brand, Sanlu, took disproportionate blame and was made a scapegoat for an industry-wide crisis. The observer/tension-discharging perspective, the ‘early information’ effect, and the contrasting roles of manufacturers and non-manufacturer parties in the supply chain in causal attributions have the most significant effect in consumer scapegoating. Study of a highly unfortunate ‘real-life experiment’ shows how a food safety scandal spills over and negatively affects attitudes and beliefs about the whole supply chain and about competing brands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this project, I analyze news coverage of the #MeToo movement to categorize how blame is assigned and what corrective actions are prescribed for the pervasive problem of sexual violence. Although it is tempting to scapegoat individuals, this practice often limits the scope of sexual violence to isolated cases. Transcendence is an alternative route to redemption that attributes blame to structural and societal forces. However, transcendence may erase intersectional differences and silence voices by overshadowing individual stories. I argue that the risks in focusing exclusively on either scapegoating or transcendence can be mediated through the lens of a rhetorical constellation. This approach calls for media and news coverage of #MeToo to attend to the specific circumstances of individual cases and to frame those unique people, voices, and stories as part of a series of interactions with other instances of sexual violence that constitute a call for societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

René Girard's pathbreaking work, especially on mimetic (imitative) thought and behavior, can be used to reinforce Marxist explanations of financial crisis. Yet Girard's concept of the scapegoat mechanism is less applicable to the modern world, and failure to recognize this can lead to confusion. A prime example is the contribution of the neo-Marxist scholar Henri Guénin-Paracini and his co-authors, who hold that the same mechanism Girard identified as existing in ancient times reconciles workers to contemporary capitalism's financial crisis tendencies. A close analysis of their argument reveals that this mechanism explains nothing about post-crisis social reproduction. Nevertheless, Girardian cognizance of scapegoating and the persecutory impulse is useful in ensuring that resistance to financialization is depersonalized. Girard's theory of mimesis, however, can contribute to a systemic account of factors leading to financial crises. In particular, his mimetic theory has the potential to bridge Keynesian and Marxist explanations of why such crises occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an interpretive model of religious persecution that aligns the psychological, ideological, and theological dimensions of the human condition and its vulnerability to harmful binary logic. It is intended to outline a deeper psychological synthesis that promotes empathic insight to challenge the destructive tendencies of the extremist mindset. The authors advocate a psychospiritual, sociocultural interpretation of group identity to illustrate the processes through which Islamic extremist groups exploit individual existential uncertainty and draw upon divine messaging to advance their ideological position. A case study is applied to expose a covert, yet deliberately orchestrated, campaign of violence led by a subset of extremist Muslims seeking to eradicate a minority Muslim group--the Ahmadiyya. Our intent in discussing the ideological frameworks and psychosocial tendencies of such groups is to expose the mechanics of their fragmenting processes. Such actions reveal the innate human drive to eliminate competitive threat and retain sole authority of the desired object--in this case the doctrine of religious purity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how demagoguery gives meaning to violence by providing a symbolic, expressive outlet for resentment resulting from real or felt precarity. This rhetorical process redirects frustrations away from the entities and sociopolitical structures responsible for creating precarity and toward a scapegoat. Rather than examining demagoguery as rhetoric produced by an individual rhetor or consumed by an audience of the masses, the author explores the "meso-level" of demagogic discourse: the organizations called into existence and motivated by individuals' shared identification with a symbolic struggle against an imagined Other. This phenomenon is illustrated through a close reading of the Proud Boys, a multinational fraternal organization that uses an aesthetic of libertarianism to advance a fascist politic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourth basic assumption in the unconscious life of groups and group-like social systems is Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification or (ba) I:A/M. Derived from failed dependency as the essence of ubiquitous traumatic experience, which is a matter of kind and degree, Incohesion is typical of all social systems in which traumatic experience is prevalent. It is pertinent to understanding political processes in societies, to consultations to traumatized organizations, and to clinical work in groups, especially for our most difficult, traumatized patients. Incohesion is especially pertinent to working with the vicissitudes of social identity. Although this perspective is central to Foulkesian Group Analysis, it draws from the work of Winnicott and others associated with the Group of Independent Psychoanalysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay identifies and examines scapegoat ecology, an emergent genre in online environmental discourse. In scapegoat ecology, a public of environmentally minded individuals focuses attention and vitriol on a single person for being particularly harmful to the environment. This essay argues that such discourse deflects attention from more complex and systemic environmental factors and implicitly exonerates the broader community, assuring it of its own environmental commitments while excusing it from further ecological action. The essay describes the form and appeal of scapegoat ecology, then provides a series of illustrative case examples before highlighting the implications of such discourse for both environmental communication and broader social/political conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security consequences associated with refugee flows are among the most widely studied aspects of forced migration. While the majority of this research program has focused on how refugee movements affect the risk of political violence, scant scholarly attention has been paid to violence perpetrated against refugees. Building upon the state repression literature, we argue that refugees are particularly vulnerable to the violation of their physical integrity rights in the wake of terrorist attacks in host states. Governments are pressured to respond to security crises but prefer to take actions without jeopardizing public support. In this context, refugee groups can be strategically attractive targets of repression because they lack electoral power and citizens are often supportive of government crackdown against foreigners in times of security crises. Given that leaders have stronger incentives to respond to voters' demands quickly in democracies, we expect the effect of terror attacks on violence against refugees to be stronger in democratic host states. Using a novel global dataset on anti-refugee violence between 1996 and 2015, we show that refugees are more likely to be exposed to violence by the coercive agents of the state in the wake of security crises. We provide suggestive evidence that the repression of refugees is more consistent with a scapegoating mechanism than the actual ties and involvement of refugees in terrorism. The findings reveal that the well-being of uprooted populations is particularly at risk when host countries face a security threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the impact of wars and national humiliations in the ancient Jewish cultural nationalism has been studied extensively, little has been written about the role of the related phenomena of cultures of resentment against foreigners or minority groups. Well before the Hellenistic period, the Jewish tradition had already created its own perfect enemy whose very name became synonymous of Israel's most malicious antagonist: Edom. This article aims to study the changing attitudes towards the Edomites/Idumaeans from the late Judaean kingdom to the Roman period using a long‐durée perspective, particularly the growth of memories of humiliation and feelings of resentment product of the alleged crimes of Edom during Judah's fall and exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A disease outbreak as rhetorical exigence calls into being both explicit linguistic responses in the form of statements from public health authorities and media coverage, and symbolic responses that operate only implicitly. An outbreak context is marked by the need to offer, seek, or obtain reassurance or preventative medicine, by way of information, behavioural change, or, as we argue, symbolic cures. We illustrate the operation of Kenneth Burke's constabulary function in addressing public concern, whereby rhetors strategically direct audience focus toward one element of a situation, while drawing notice away from another, in media coverage of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic as a case study. We also illustrate the operation of processes of scapegoating as a tool of constabulary rhetoric in the service of reassurance against the threat of infection. Finally, we examine ethical conflicts attendant on such symbolic cures via the framework of the pharmakon/pharmakos continuum that Jacques Derrida discusses in the context of Plato's critique of the instability of written language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the metaphor of the scapegoat by offering a case study taken from the history of France at the turn of the 20th-century. The case is presented of a French army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, whose wrongful conviction for treason created an international sensation and tore French society apart.The author outlines the general features of the scapegoating dynamic and applies them to the Dreyfus case. He sets out the flow of events from Dreyfus’s first trial through to the official declaration of his innocence a century after his conviction, illustrating the tenacity of the scapegoating dynamic when an entire nation is caught up in the process. The view is put forward that it was the dramatic intervention by the novelist Emile Zola in the Dreyfus case which arrested the scapegoating process. The author asks what the implications of this might be for group analysis.At the centre of the Dreyfus case was the fact of his Jewishness. The author depicts anti-Semitism as a deeply rooted set of assumptions based on myths about the Jews. He touches on the origins of these myths in early monotheistic theology and in the political ideology of the Far Left and the Far Right. An explanation is offered for the persistence of these myths in our culture, which may extend to our understanding of myths surrounding other peoples and societies. The author concludes with some reflections on the recurring nature of the scapegoat phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Focuses attention on the ethics of crisis communication. • Conducts an ethical critique of the crisis and image restoration lexicon. • Begins the process of identifying unethical public relations strategies. • Focuses attention on stakeholders and publics in crisis and not just organizational interests. Abstract The crisis strategy of scapegoating has been part of the crisis and image restoration lexicon for more than four decades. And yet, the practice of scapegoating is a well-known unethical practice that simply deflects deserved blame from one party to a sacrificial other. This essay critiques the "Primary Crisis Response" strategy of scapegoating, conducting an historical and ethical critique of the crisis strategy, and concludes that scapegoating should be removed from the public relations crisis and image restoration lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Manipulated the psychological threat (value or control) posed by climate change. • Blamed outgroup (China) for Climate Change more if ingroup culpable or cause indeterminate. • Collective Narcissism moderated scapegoating when climate change threatened ingroup's moral image. • Personal Need for Structure and Need for Closure moderated scapegoating when climate change threatened perceived control. • Chronic differences in concerns for group status and certainty predict scapegoating in different contexts. Rothschild and colleagues (2012) proposed that people scapegoat to maintain either their moral identity or control. Two experiments manipulated the threat posed by Climate Change to examine how individual differences moderate who blames a scapegoat. Study 1 (N = 835) found variation in Personal Need for Structure moderated scapegoating when climate change was a chaotic hazard, but not after reminders of one's own culpability. A second preregistered study (N = 1183) found that whereas those with a high Need for Closure scapegoated when a causally uncertain depiction of climate change threatened their control, those high in Collective Narcissism scapegoated when culpability threatened their group's moral image. This suggests differences in certainty and status concerns predict scapegoating in different contexts. (1 1 9) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]