Are Collective Punishment Policies Doomed to Backfire? a Social Identity Approach Analysis

Abstract

This paper examines collective punishment from the perspective of the social identity approach, demonstrating that targeting all members of a group tends to backfire by strengthening rather than weakening their shared social identity. The fundamental rationale behind collective punishment is to create pressure on innocent group members, expecting them to react internally against guilty individuals, thereby bringing about a behavioral change. However, three case analyses focusing on Western sanctions imposed on Russia, trade tariffs implemented by the Trump administration against Canada, and Israel’s systematic policies in the Palestinian territories indicate that this strategy generally fails to achieve its intended outcomes. In accordance with the social identity approach, such external threats generate a shared sense of fate and victimhood within the punished group, thereby reinforcing ingroup solidarity and the collective sense of “we”. Consequently, anger is directed not toward the perpetrators within the group but toward the external punisher, rendering the punishing actor’s objective of dividing the ingroup ineffective. The research concludes that collective punishment is a destructive instrument that deepens polarization, erodes trust, and ultimately proven ineffective, or even counterproductive, in achieving its goals. These findings strongly emphasize that punishment, beyond its ethical and legal dimensions, should be grounded in individual responsibility and applied exclusively to actual perpetrators to ensure fairness and effectiveness.