Explaining Support for Political Violence: Grievance and Perceived Opportunity

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002720909886
• Date: 01 October 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Explaining Support

for Political Violence:

Grievance and Perceived

Opportunity

Karin Dyrstad

1

, and Solveig Hillesund

2

Abstract

What explains support for violence against the state? The surge in survey-based

studies in (former) conflict areas has improved our understanding of the determi-

nants of armed conflict. Yet, the potential interaction between grievances and

political opportunity structure has received little attention in microlevel studies.

Integrating common arguments from the civil war literature with the political

behavior tradition, this article argues that perceived political efficacy, a central

component of the political opportunity structure, moderates the association

between individual and group grievance and people’s support for political violence. It

represents a first individual-level test of the argument that perceived political

opportunity structure and grievances combine to explain internal armed conflict.

Using original survey data from Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland (2016), we

find robust empirical evidence that support for violence increases with perceived

grievance and decreases with political efficacy; and some evidence of an interaction

between the two.

Keywords

conflict, rebellion, democratization, civil wars, internal armed conflict, democratic

institutions

1

Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

(NTNU), Dragvoll, Norway

2

Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Karin Dyrstad, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and

Technology (NTNU), N-7491 Trondheim, Norway.

Email: karin.dyrstad@ntnu.no

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(9) 1724-1753

ªThe Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002720909886

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Many armed groups depend on the local population for their survival. In conflict and

postconflict situations, the local population represents a resource that political entre-

preneurs and spoilers can draw on. They can support armed actors tacitly, by tolerat-

ing their presence; through the provision of shelter, supplies, or informat ion; or

through active participation in insurgency. Whether people are willing to provide

support depends in part on a predisposition toward politically motivated violence.

Latent support for political violence may therefore be an important risk factor for

conflict.

The recent surge in survey-based research on internal armed conflict has

improved our understanding of political violence (Balcells and Justino 2014). Cen-

tral propositions from the macro-oriented literature are being been put to the test on

the individual level, where they conceptually belong. Importantly, scholars have

shown that inequality and grievance increase support for violence (Rustad 2016;

Hillesund 2015; Miodownik and Nir 2016; Koos 2018).

This article takes microlevel investigations of support for violence a step further.

Recent macrolevel studies posit a joint effect of motivation and opportunity structure

(D. E. Cunningham et al. 2017; White et al. 2015; Bormann and Hammond 2016;

Bara 2014). Yet, its individual-level corollary, that people’s perceptions of the

political system condition the relationship between grievances and support for vio-

lence, has received little attention.

To examine the interaction proposition on the microlevel, this article combines

insights from the conflict literature and studies of contentious political participa-

tion. We argue that dissatisfaction (grievances) with the material and political

situation and evaluations of the effectiveness of ordinary political channels for

peaceful opposition work together to shape individual support for political vio-

lence. Individuals who want to influence politics face a choice between conven-

tional and contentious participation, between rejecting and supporting violence.

We expect that support for political violence depends on a combination of motiva-

tion and perceived efficacy of conventional political participation. Those who

believe that they can have a say in politics, or are satisfied with society and their

position in it, should be least likely to support violent political action. Vice versa,

dissatisfied individuals who find existing channels of political influence flawed or

blocked should be particularly prone to thinking that it is legitimate to take up arms

against the government—whether they do so themselves or support someone else

doing it.

To test the propositions, we adopt a most different cases comparative design,

employing original survey data (2016) from Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ire-

land. The restriction to electoral democracies with a history of armed conflict is

partly due to pragmatic concerns of data availability. However, the cases offer a

theoretically interesting point of departure for investigation of motivation, opportu-

nity, and support for political violence. In electoral democracies, individual political

participation can generally be expected to matter, making political efficacy more

relevant than in autocracies. Compared to more peaceful societies, the risk of

Dyrstad and Hillesund 1725