The Causes and Consequences of Group Violence

Introduction: Working toward Understanding Group Violence, James Hawdon and John Ryan

Part 1: Perpetrators of Group Violence
Chapter 1: On the Forms and Nature of Group Violence, James Hawdon
Chapter 2: Hate Groups: From Offline to Online Social Identifications, Atte Oksanen, Pekka Räsänen, and James Hawdon
Chapter 3: Violence and Street Groups: Gangs, Groups, and Violence,David Kennedy
Chapter 4: Intergroup Contact and Genocide, Wenona Rymond-Richmond
Chapter 5: Group Violence against the State: The Hindsight Story of the Thirty-Year War in Sri Lanka, Tharindi Udalagama and Premakumara de Silva
Chapter 6: (Non)Violence and Conflict: A Theoretical Assessment of Civil Resistance and the Syrian Conflict, Jeanne Chang and Alec Clott
Chapter 7: Killing Before an Audience: Terrorism and Group Violence, Mark Juergensmeyer

Part 2: Victims of Group Violence
Chapter 8: Gender, Weight, and Inequality Associated with School Bullying,Anthony Peguero and Lindsay Kahle
Chapter 9: Victims of Hate Groups: American Youth’s Exposure to Online Hate Speech, James Hawdon, Atte Oksanen, and Pekka Räsänen
Chapter 10: Selecting Targets: The Influence of Judgments, Mobility and Gender on Intragroup Violence among Tamil Refugees, Christian Matteis, Virginia Roach, Michelle Sutherland, and James Hawdon

Part 3: Consequences of Group Violence
Chapter 11: Consequences of Group Violence involving Youth in Sri Lanka,Siri Hettige
Chapter 12: Gender Dimensions of Group Violence, Donna Pankhurst
Chapter 13: Communities: Examining Psychological, Sociological, and Cultural Consequences after Mass Violence Tragedies, Pekka Räsänen, Atte Oksanen and James Hawdon

Part 4: Reflections on Group Violence
Chapter 14: Group Violence Revisited: Common Themes across Types of Group Violence, James Hawdon
Chapter 15: Humanistic Reflections on Understanding Group Violence, Marc Lucht

These ambitious interdisciplinary articles from the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech are wide in scope. . . .The 15 articles are arranged into four sections. 'Perpetrators of Group Violence' surveys street gangs, online hate groups, genocide, state and anti-state violence, and terrorism as performance. The three chapters in 'The Victims of Group Violence' examine bullying based on gender and weight, youth exposure to Internet hate speech, and intra-group violence among Sri Lankan Tamils. 'Consequences of Group Violence' covers the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war, examines gender impacts on group violence, and reviews community responses to rampage killings, with case studies from Norway. In 'Reflections on Group Violence,' coeditor Hawdon calls for more sociological analysis and identifies four situational conditions associated with group violence: ineffective state control, group identity maintenance, slow rates of social mobility, and symbolic status achieved via violence. Coeditor Lucht asks researchers to supplement causal social scientific accounts of group violence with investigations that address meaning and seek understanding. Summing Up: Recommended. Faculty, specialists, professionals.