Understanding violent extremism in the 21st century: the (re)emerging role of relative deprivation

The paper, in plain language

An old concept, returning

Relative deprivation is one of social science's older ideas: what radicalises is not absolute hardship but the perception that you or your group are worse off than others, undeservedly. In this review, Milan Obaidi and I argue that against the backdrop of growing social inequalities, the concept has earned its return to the centre of extremism research — and we expect it to be a key factor driving violent extremism across cultures and contexts in this century.

Three pathways, not one

The argument's core is that deprivation radicalises in three distinct directions. Low-power groups may turn to violence to challenge an unequal status quo — the classic case. But high-power groups also turn violent to defend a privileged position they feel slipping away, a pattern visible in majority-group extremism across the West. And sometimes people radicalise on behalf of others: violent attempts to help an out-group perceived as deprived. Prevention aimed only at the marginalised misses two of the three.

Why it matters

Treating extremism as a pathology of the poor and excluded has always fit the data badly — perpetrators are often neither. The relative-deprivation lens explains why: what counts is the perceived gap and its perceived injustice, which the comfortable can feel as sharply as the deprived. This is a theoretical review rather than a new empirical test, and it set the agenda for our later empirical work separating the psychologies of offensive and defensive violence.