Inclusive vs Non-Inclusive Victimhood: Opposite Paths to Conflict and Reconciliation

Why This Question Matters

Collective victimhood beliefs—shared memories or narratives that a group has been wronged—are widely invoked in war, mass violence, and transitional justice debates. Marko Kljajic, Nadav Shelef, and Ethan vanderWilden ask how those beliefs shape people's conflict-related attitudes: do they push groups toward more hostility and exclusion, or can they facilitate reconciliation?

How the Authors Define Collective Victimhood

The article distinguishes two forms of collective victimhood. Non-inclusive victimhood frames past harm as a source of exclusive grievance and boundary-strengthening vis-à-vis outsiders; inclusive victimhood frames suffering in ways that recognize broader humanity or shared experiences across groups. These conceptual distinctions matter because they imply different emotional and cognitive responses to intergroup conflict.

Scope and Methods

The authors conduct a systematic meta-analysis of 745 estimates drawn from 103 published articles to quantify the relationship between collective victimhood beliefs and a set of conflict-related outcomes. Outcomes assessed include hawkishness (support for aggressive policies), willingness to reconcile, support for out-group exclusion, and in-group attachment. The meta-analysis also examines links to intermediary emotions and cognitive perspectives and compares findings from observational versus experimental designs.

Key Findings

• Pooled across studies, collective victimhood beliefs are positively associated with conflict-enhancing attitudes.
• Crucially, effects diverge by type: non-inclusive victimhood is associated with stronger hawkishness, greater support for out-group exclusion, and heightened in-group attachment. Inclusive victimhood generally shows the opposite pattern, correlating with greater openness to reconciliation and less exclusion.
• These patterns hold across geographic regions, kinds of conflict experiences, and different group identities.
• Relationships between victimhood beliefs and the emotions/cognitive frames that typically mediate intergroup hostility (e.g., anger, threat perceptions) mirror the main outcomes.
• Methodological check: observational and experimental studies point in the same direction, but experimental estimates are consistently smaller in magnitude than observational ones.

Implications for Scholars and Practitioners

The findings suggest that not all appeals to a group's suffering have the same political effects: narrative framing that renders victimhood inclusive may reduce support for conflict and exclusion, whereas exclusivist framings may amplify them. For researchers, the results underscore the value of distinguishing subtypes of collective victimhood; for policymakers and peacebuilders, they highlight narrative framing as a potential lever in conflict mitigation.