Peace psychology

Topic: Types of violence: Homicide, Genocide, Democide, Terrorism

Aiman Nadeem

Roll No. 019309

BS Applied Psychology

Semester VIII

Session: 2016-2020

Submitted to

Ms. Sara Ali

__________________________________________________________________________

Government Post Graduate College for Women, Raiwind, Lahore.

Defining violence

The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself,

another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood

of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. The

definition used by the World Health Organization associates intentionality with the

committing of the act itself, irrespective of the outcome it produces.

Excluded from the definition are unintentional incidents – such as most road traffic

injuries and burns. The inclusion of the word ‘‘power’’, in addition to the phrase ‘‘use of

physical force’’, broadens the nature of a violent act and expands the conventional

understanding of violence to include those acts that result from a power relationship,

including threats and intimidation. The ‘‘use of power’’ also serves to include neglect or acts

of omission, in addition to them or obvious violent acts of commission. Thus, ‘‘the use of

physical force or power’’ should be understood to include neglect and all types of physical,

sexual and psychological abuse, as well as suicide and other self-abusive acts.

Typology of violence

In its 1996 resolution WHA49.25, declaring violence a leading public health problem,

the World Health Assembly called on the World Health Organization to develop a typology

of violence that characterized the different types of violence and the links between them.

Types of violence

The typology proposed here divides violence into three broad categories according to

characteristics of those committing the violent act: — self-directed violence; — interpersonal

violence; — collective violence. This initial categorization differentiates between violence a

person inflicts upon himself or herself, violence inflicted by another individual or by a small
group of individuals, and violence inflicted by larger groups such as states, organized

political groups, militia groups and terrorist organizations . These three broad categories are

each divided further to reflect more specific types of violence.

S elf- directed violence

Self-directed violence is subdivided into suicidal behavior and self-abuse. The former

includes suicidal thoughts, attempted suicides – also called ‘‘parasuicide’’ or ‘‘deliberate

self-injury’’ in some countries – and completed suicides. Self-abuse, in contrast, includes acts

such as self-mutilation.

Interpersonal violence

Interpersonal violence is divided into two subcategories:

Family and intimate partner violence – that is, violence largely between family members and

intimate partners, usually, though not exclusively, taking place in the home.

Community violence – violence between individuals who are unrelated, and who

may or may not know each other, generally taking place outside the home. The former group

includes forms of violence such as child abuse, intimate partner violence and abuse of the

elderly. The latter includes youth violence, random acts of violence, rape or sexual assault by

strangers, and violence in institutional settings such as schools, workplaces, prisons and

nursing homes.

Collective violence

Collective violence is subdivided into social, political and economic violence. Unlike

the other two broad categories, the subcategories of collective violence suggest possible

motives for violence committed by larger groups of individuals or by states. Collective

violence that is committed to advance a particular social agenda includes, for example,

crimes of hate committed by organized groups, terrorist acts and mob violence. Political

violence includes war and related violent conflicts, state violence and similar acts carried out

by larger groups.

Economic violence includes attacks by larger groups motivated by economic gain –

such as attacks carried out with the purpose of disrupting economic activity, denying access

to essential services, or creating economic division and fragmentation. Clearly, acts

committed by larger groups can have multiple motives.

WORLD REPORT ON VIOLENCE AND HEALTH

These four types of violent acts occur in each of the broad categories and their

subcategories described above – with the exception of self-directed violence. For instance,

violence against children committed within the home can include physical, sexual and

psychological abuse, as well as neglect.

Community violence can include physical assaults between young people, sexual

violence in the workplace and neglect of older people in long-term care facilities. Political

violence can include such acts as rape during conflicts, and physical and psychological

warfare. This typology , while imperfect and far from being universally accepted, does

provide a useful framework for understanding the complex patterns of violence taking place

around the world, as well as violence in the everyday lives of individuals, families and

communities

Mortality data

Data on fatalities, particularly through homicide, and on suicide and war-related

deaths can provide an indication of the extent of lethal violence in a particular community or
country. When compared to statistics on other deaths, such data are useful indicators of the

burden created by violence-related injuries. These data can also be used for monitoring

changes over time in fatal violence, identifying groups and communities at high risk of

violence, and making comparisons within and between countries.

Defining democide

Within a Spectrum of Sociopolitical Violence Genocide has been defined as “the

sustained, purposeful action by a perpetrator [usually the state] to physically destroy a

collectivity directly (through mass or selective murders and calculable physical destruction)

or through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of group members.” The

concept of genocide is ambiguous in scope. Sometimes it is taken to include murderous

suppression of political opposition and sometimes not (as in the 1948 United Nations

Convention, based on Lemke’s well-known compromise to resolve an impasse in the

convention).

Some have remedied this gap by conducting studies of genocide plus politicide. Here,

we adopt Rummel’s broader term (democide), to be clear that political suppression is not

artificially excluded. By this definition, democide is “the murder of any person or people by a

government, including genocide, politicide, or mass murder.” In our view, Rummel’s

definition is too extensive in taking the murder by government of a single individual (e.g., an

assassination) to be democide; it would be better to restrict the term to systematic killing of

large numbers of noncombatant (civilian) individuals. This definition does not require the

stated purpose of eliminating an entire group. Our slightly adjusted definition of democide

ends up similar in scope to Valentino’s preferred terminology referencing “mass killing;” a

difference is that Valentino used 50,000 deaths as a minimum threshold, whereas to take

better account of democide against small scale societies (with, in fact, often fewer than
50,000 lives to lose) we employed a lower threshold. Our focus is on a psychological

‘mindset’ account of sociopolitical violence. We use the term mindset in a way consistent

with dictionary definitions, meaning a fixed mental attitude that affects how someone

interprets or responds to situations. For purposes of this research, mindset is defined

pragmatically as aspects of such thinking patterns that are observable, that is, accessible in

rhetoric, in public communications or official statements. This contrasts with private

cogitations (in diaries or letters), ascertainable by an observer only years after horrendous

events have occurred.

Terrorism

Terrorism is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the unlawful use of violence and

intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” We quickly see that

this definition is unspecific and subjective.1 The issue of subjectivity in this case means that

there is no internationally recognized legal definition of terrorism. Despite considerable

discussion, the formation of a comprehensive convention against international terrorism by

the United Nations has always been impeded by the lack of consensus on a definition.

The key problem is that terrorism is difficult to distinguish from other forms of

political violence and violent crime, such as state-based armed conflict, non-state conflict,

one-sided violence, hate crime, and homicide. The lines between these different forms of

violence are often blurry. Here, we take a look at standard criteria of what constitutes

terrorism, as well as how it might be distinguished from other forms of violence.

The criteria for terrorism

Violent actions are usually categorised according to the perpetrator, the victim, the

method, and the purpose. Different definitions emphasise different characteristics, depending

on the priorities of the agency involved. In our coverage of terrorism, we rely strongly on

data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which defines terrorism as “acts of violence

by non-state actors, perpetrated against civilian populations, intended to cause fear, in order

to achieve a political objective.”  Its definition excludes violence initiated by governments

(state terrorism) and open combat between opposing armed forces, even if they’re non-state

actors. In our definitions section we provide the GTD’s more detailed definition, in addition

to others such as that of the United Nations. 

 References

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Foege WH, Rosenberg ML, Mercy JA (995) Public health and violence prevention. Current

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