Competitive victimhood as a lens to reconciliation: An analysis of the black lives matter and blue lives matter movements

• Author: Johanna Solomon,Adam Martin
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21262

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Competitive victimhood as a lens to reconciliation:

An analysis of the black lives matter and blue lives

matter movements

Johanna Solomon

1

| Adam Martin

2

1

School of Peace and Conflict Studies, Kent

State University, Kent, Ohio

2

Department of History and Political

Science, Graceland University,

Lamoni, Iowa

Correspondence

Johanna Solomon, Kent State University,

School of Peace and Conflict Studies, PO

Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242-0001.

Email: jsolom14@kent.edu

Abstract

Literature on intergroup conflict and identity is well

established; this literature includes work on competitive

victimhood—the process by which groups attempt to

establish that they have suffered more than opposing

groups (Noor et al., Personality and Social Psychology

Review, 2012, 16(4), 351–374) to restore feelings of moral

identity, or cache often for use in a political context

(Sullivan et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-

ogy, 2012, 102(4), 778). Within prior work on competitive

victimhood, models of reconciliation based on the particu-

lar needs and identities established within the competitive

victimhood dynamic have also been posited (SimanTov-

Nachlieli et al., European Journal of Social Psychology,

2015, 45(2), 139–145; Shnabel et al., Journal of Experi-

mental Social Psychology, 2013, 49(5), 867–877). While

competitive victimhood theory has been applied in prior

work to several cross-national settings, there exist other

important areas of intergroup tension that have not been

explored. We propose that the concept of competitive vic-

timhood can be fruitfully used to understand movement-

countermovement dynamics, including those related to

conflictual race relations in the United States. Specifically,

this article will examine the dynamic between the move-

ments “Black Lives Matter”and “Blue Lives Matter”as a

salient paired research case of a movement and counter-

movement for investigating identity and victimhood.

In our present article, we map the discourse of the Black

Received: 26 July 2018 Revised: 3 June 2019 Accepted: 9 June 2019

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21262

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2019;37:7–31. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 7

and Blue Lives Matter movements as illustrations of col-

lective victimhood (Schori-Eyal et al., Journal of Applied

Social Psychology, 2014, 44(12), 778–794) and competi-

tive victimhood (Noor et al., Personality and Social Psy-

chology Review, 2012, 16(4), 351–374). We find that

while both movements demonstrate competitive victim-

hood, they are also qualitatively different. Due to differ-

ences in threat, power, and history of those the movements

advocate for, each movement demonstrates different needs

(Burton, Conflict: Human needs theory, Springer, 1990).

We posit that the identity dynamics of competitive victim-

hood within social movements specifically lead to impor-

tant and different identity needs for agency and morality

(Shnabel & Noor, in Restoring civil societies: The psychol-

ogy of intervention and engagement following crisis

(pp. 192–207), Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, England,

2012). We examine what these differences would mean in

these particular movements, as well as for potential ave-

nues of community building based on addressing these

needs. In all cases, we aim to show that what has largely

been considered a criminal justice phenomenon in the

United States is fundamentally political, with roots and

possible solutions in intergroup identity dynamics that can

be fruitfully explored within political psychology.

1|INTRODUCTION

Violent conflicts often feature two or more antagonists in an intergroup relationship of competitive

victimhood (Sullivan, Landau, Branscombe, & Rothschild, 2012). In this dynamics, political or social

groups identify as having suffered more than another group. Groups displaying this identity display

particular behavioral patterns, including attempting to publicly establish that they have suffered

more, and qualitatively differently, than opposing groups (Noor, Shnabel, Halabi, & Nadler, 2012).

This behavior can support feelings of moral identity for minority or lesser powered groups, or it

can restore feelings of moral identity for those with greater social status, especially in the context of

having done harm (Sullivan et al., 2012). Several studies establish that those accused of doing harm

to others will in turn identify themselves as the real victims. For example, Phillips and Lowery

(2015) found that when men are accused of violence against women, or when white Americans are

accused of racism, the accused in each case may portray themselves as the greater victims.

While this dynamic has been established experimentally, it is chiefly applied to violent conflicts

at the state level, such as Israel/Palestine (Shnabel, Halabi, & Noor, 2013), Northern Ireland (Cohrs,

McNeill & Vollhardt, 2015), Chile (Noor, Brown, Halabi, & Prentice, 2008), Kosovo (Andrighetto,

8SOLOMON AND MARTIN