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From Shared Hatred to Internal Purge: Outgroup Construction, Cohesion, and Recursive Fragmentation in Ideological Life

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper examines how ideological movements may achieve cohesion through shared hostility while simultaneously generating conditions for their own internal destabilization. Drawing on a structured conceptual and thematic review of scholarship in social identity theory, moral psychology, ideological authenticity, factionalism, and mediated outrage, the paper argues that outgroup construction can function as a powerful source of collective belonging, especially under conditions of uncertainty, grievance, and moral intensity. However, when enemy production becomes a dominant basis of solidarity, the same exclusionary logic that secures unity against outsiders may later be redirected inward. The paper conceptualizes this inward turn as recursive fragmentation, a process in which movements repeatedly narrow the circle of legitimate belonging through purity demands, loyalty tests, and accusations of betrayal. Rather than treating hostility as a mere emotional excess, the paper interprets it as a behavioral-social mechanism that can provide short-term affective cohesion while undermining long-term trust, plurality, and institutional durability. The analysis also situates this process within contemporary mediated environments, where outrage, denunciation, and public moral signaling may intensify both external antagonism and internal policing. The paper contributes an integrated conceptual model linking outgroup construction, affective cohesion, purity regulation, authenticity suspicion, and self-consuming fragmentation. It concludes that movements whose internal coherence depends too heavily on sustained enemy production face a structural risk of inward purification and progressive erosion of durable collective life. The paper closes by recommending future qualitative and discourse-based research on betrayal narratives, purity language, and internal boundary enforcement across ideological contexts.
DOI: 10.65166/enspq814
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7162805049
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