Profiling the politically violent in Pakistan: Self-construals and values.

Abstract

Empirical evidence relating individualism-collectivism (IC) to sociopolitical factors is still scarce. This survey explores how factors generally purported to represent an Asian society (i.e., collectivism) relate to context-specific characteristics of political groups within that society (i.e., the endorsement of political violence). The city of Karachi in Pakistan has a long history of political, sectarian and criminal violence, economic inequality, and complex associations between religion and politics. Where traditional occupational routes are blocked, violent activism may provide an alternative, politicized route to the attainment of life goals. This leads to the hypothesis that political violence has its roots in individualist self-construal and in individualist value orientations. There were 195 political activists surveyed from Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), a violent secular party and from Jamaat e Islami (JI), a nonviolent Islamist party. Results support the reasoning that individualist violenc...