From Ideology to Identity: Understanding Contemporary Drivers of Targeted Violence
Part of the Montane Hybrid Grievance Threat Series
Understanding the Threat
For much of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, targeted violence was frequently analysed through an ideological lens. Whether examining political extremism, ethno-nationalist movements, religiously motivated terrorism or single-issue activism, analysts often sought to understand violence by identifying the beliefs, doctrines or narratives that appeared to motivate offending behaviour.
While ideology remains an important explanatory factor, contemporary pathways toward targeted violence increasingly appear more complex. In many cases, ideology alone may not adequately explain an individual's progression from grievance to harmful action. Instead, violence may emerge from a convergence of personal experiences, identity needs, feelings of exclusion, perceived injustice, social influences and exposure to reinforcing narratives. Under these circumstances, ideology may provide a framework for interpreting existing frustrations rather than serving as their original source.
Understanding this distinction is becoming increasingly important for protective security practitioners. Effective threat assessment requires more than identifying what an individual believes. It requires understanding how they perceive themselves, where they find meaning and belonging, and how these factors interact with grievances, behaviours and potential pathways toward violence.
The Search for Identity and Belonging
Human beings naturally seek belonging, connection and purpose. Most individuals satisfy these needs through family, community, employment, education, faith, cultural identity or social networks. These connections help establish a sense of self and provide a framework through which individuals interpret their experiences and relationships with others.
However, some individuals experience periods of disconnection, alienation or perceived exclusion. These experiences are not inherently concerning and form part of normal human life. Nevertheless, where such experiences become prolonged or coincide with other stressors, they may contribute to the development of grievances or a search for alternative sources of identity and belonging.
In these circumstances, communities formed around shared narratives can become particularly influential. Such communities may exist in physical environments, online spaces or a combination of both. For some individuals, they provide validation, recognition and a sense of purpose. For others, they may reinforce perceptions of victimisation, injustice or hostility toward particular groups, institutions or individuals.
When Ideology Becomes a Vehicle Rather Than a Driver
Traditional models of radicalisation often assume that individuals adopt an ideology and subsequently become motivated to act in support of it. While this pathway certainly exists, mounting evidence suggests that some actors arrive at ideological narratives through a different process.
Rather than seeking ideology itself, individuals may initially be attempting to explain personal difficulties, social frustrations, perceived failures or experiences of rejection. In these circumstances, ideological material can provide an appealing explanatory framework. It offers certainty, identifies perceived causes of injustice and frequently provides a clear distinction between those who belong and those who do not.
This distinction is important because it changes how practitioners understand motivation. In some cases, ideology may represent the primary driver of violence. In others, ideology may function more as a vehicle through which personal grievances are interpreted, justified and ultimately projected onto a wider social or political context.
Consequently, understanding violence requires more than analysing declared beliefs.
It requires understanding the underlying needs, experiences and motivations that may have made those beliefs appealing in the first place.
The Influence of Online Communities
Digital technologies have fundamentally altered how individuals form relationships, access information and engage with communities. Individuals no longer require physical proximity to find others who share their interests, frustrations or worldview. As a result, online communities can provide powerful reinforcement for developing identities and grievances.
It is important to emphasise that participation in online communities is not inherently suspicious. Millions of people engage with online communities every day without any associated security concern.
Equally, social isolation, identity exploration and engagement with contentious topics are not indicators of violence in themselves.
The security relevance emerges when online environments contribute to the escalation of grievance, reinforce existing fixations or create a permissive environment for harmful behaviour. Under such circumstances, online interactions may strengthen perceptions of legitimacy, provide social reinforcement and gradually normalise attitudes or behaviours that would otherwise be challenged.
For some actors, online communities may become the primary environment through which identity, grievance and personal significance converge.
Grievance and the Search for Significance
A recurring feature of contemporary targeted violence is the presence of accumulated grievance. These grievances can emerge from personal, professional, social, political or cultural experiences. In some cases they are objectively evident. In others they are perceived, exaggerated or distorted.
From a protective security perspective, the distinction between real and perceived grievance is often less important than the individual's interpretation of it. Perceptions frequently influence behaviour regardless of whether they are externally validated.
As grievances accumulate, some individuals begin seeking explanations, meaning or recognition.
The desire for significance is a common human characteristic and is not inherently problematic. However, where the search for significance intersects with grievance, isolation, fixation or exposure to harmful narratives, it may contribute to movement toward targeted violence.
In these circumstances, violence may become perceived not merely as an act of aggression, but as a means of achieving recognition, expressing grievance or reasserting a sense of personal importance.
Implications for Protective Security Practitioners
For practitioners, the evolving nature of targeted violence presents a challenge. Traditional categories such as terrorism, extremism, criminality and behavioural threats remain valuable analytical tools. However, they may not always provide a complete explanation of an actor's motivations or trajectory.
Many contemporary actors display characteristics that extend across multiple categories.
They may simultaneously exhibit personal grievance, identity-related concerns, online reinforcement, ideological influences, fixation and a willingness to use violence. Attempting to reduce such complexity to a single label risks obscuring behaviours and indicators that are more relevant to security outcomes.
Accordingly, effective threat assessment increasingly requires practitioners to consider identity, belonging, grievance, social influences and behavioural indicators alongside more traditional ideological considerations. The objective is not simply to understand what an individual believes, but to understand how those beliefs interact with personal circumstances, perceptions and behaviours that may contribute to harmful action.
Summary
Ideology remains an important component of many pathways toward targeted violence. However, contemporary threat environments increasingly suggest that identity, belonging, grievance and the search for personal significance may be equally important factors in understanding why some individuals move toward violence.
In some cases, ideology may be the principal driver. In others, it may provide language, justification and structure for pre-existing personal grievances and identity-based needs. Understanding this relationship is critical for practitioners seeking to assess emerging threats within increasingly complex and interconnected environments.
The challenge for protective security practitioners is therefore not simply to identify ideological affiliations, but to understand the broader human and social factors that shape behaviour.
Doing so provides a more complete understanding of the threat and supports more informed security, risk and resilience decisions.
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