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Shaking the tyrant’s bloody robe

An evolutionary perspective on ethnoreligious violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Jordan Kiper  and
Richard Sosis
Jordan Kiper*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Richard Sosis*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
*
Correspondence: Jordan Kiper, M.A., Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, U-2176, Storrs, CT 06269-2176. Email: jordan.kiper@uconn.edu
Richard Sosis, Ph.D., James Barnett Professor of Humanistic Anthropology and Director of the Evolution, Cognition, and Culture Program, Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, U-2176, Storrs, CT 06269-2176. Email: richard.sosis@uconn.edu
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Abstract

Group violence, despite much study, remains enigmatic. Its forms are numerous, its proximate causes myriad, and the interrelation of its forms and proximate causes poorly understood. We review its evolution, including preadaptations and selected propensities, and its putative environmental and psychological triggers. We then reconsider one of its forms, ethnoreligious violence, in light of recent discoveries in the behavioral and brain sciences. We find ethnoreligious violence to be characterized by identity fusion and by manipulation of religious traditions, symbols, and systems. We conclude by examining the confluence of causes and characteristics before and during Yugoslavia’s wars of disintegration.

Keywords

Collective violenceethnic violenceidentity fusionintergroup conflictreligious system
Type
Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 27 - 47
Copyright
© Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2016 

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