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Research Journal of the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka- Rohana 11, 2019

Runciman drew a distinction between “egoistic” and “fraternalistic” relative
deprivation. Egoistic relative deprivation occurs when a comparison is made

between an individual’s circumstances and that of a reference group. A comparison

that is unfavorable to one can result in discontentment and unhappiness. Fraternal
relative deprivation occurs when an unfavorable comparison is made between one

social group (this may be based on race, language, religion, caste, social class, etc.)
and another. Such comparisons can lead to substantial social discontent that could

erupt into political protest, riots, and in extreme cases, social revolution.

Ted Gur also makes certain observations about the relationship between deprivation

and violence. He expounds in “Why Men Rebel” (2010), that if people feel they are
being deprived of something (especially regarding sundry rights like welfare,

linguistic, religious, and other benefits) when comparing their position with those
around them, it engenders feelings of discontent within them. This also happens

when they realize that they have less of that which they believe themselves to be
entitled to, so a gap is opened between their aspirations and their achievements.

These problems always arise among deprived groups. As pointed out by Gur, ‘the

tension that develops from the discrepancy between “ought” and the “is” is of
collective value contentment’, and this disposes men to become violent (Gur, 2010,

p. 23). Therefore, relative deprivation and the resultant discontent are identified as

potential causes of conflicts within and between organizations. In the case of a
country, it can lead to political violence, such as conflicts, rioting, terrorism, civil

wars and other instances of malefaction.

This is a qualitative research that is based on the theory of relative deprivation and
uses the case study method. In this context, as the first step of the data collection

process the researcher was able to gather a large volume of subject related secondary
information from various text documents. This process mainly depended on a desk-

based review of literature and the perusal of other related documents that were most

relevant to the main research area. Through the literature survey, a vast amount of

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