group conflict
Definition
Group conflict refers to antagonism between collectives in which violence, or the threat of violence, is directed across group boundaries rather than arising solely from individual pathology or criminal motivation. Terrorism represents one form of this phenomenon, specifically as asymmetric conflict in which non-state actors employ mass violence as a kind of 'warfare of the weak' against a stronger adversary. A persistent difficulty in studying group conflict through the lens of terrorism research is the field's reliance on ideology as the defining feature of intergroup violence, an approach that struggles to account for perpetrators whose grievances are personal, mixed, or absent altogether. Emotions such as anger and humiliation, and the interaction between conflicting groups rather than ideas located solely inside perpetrators' heads, shape violent action in ways that purely ideological accounts miss.
Sources: McCauley (2026)
Related Terms
- ideology (1 shared article)
- salad bar (1 shared article)
- terrorism (1 shared article)
- violent extremism (1 shared article)
- mobilization frame (1 shared article)
- nihilistic violent extremism (1 shared article)
Applications
Group Conflict and Radicalization
Radicalization to terrorism has long been understood as a process by which individuals come to endorse and enact ideologically motivated intergroup violence, yet this framing breaks down when lone-actor perpetrators show no consistent ideology. McCauley argues for replacing ideology with collective action framing, which identifies a grievance and assigns blame, proposes a violent solution, and specifies who should act, as a more accurate account of how individuals mobilize toward violence against an outgroup.
Sources: McCauley (2026)
Group Conflict and Violent Extremism
Violent extremism has been defined by U.S. government agencies as ideologically motivated force used to further political or social ends, a definition that grounds extremism explicitly in intergroup antagonism. As a growing number of lone actors, predominantly young men, commit mass violence with no clear ideology, the assumption that group conflict is always ideologically structured is increasingly difficult to sustain.
Sources: McCauley (2026)
