1. Mimetic Violence and the Origins of Social Order (René Girard)

René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire suggests that human beings do not desire things independently; rather, they model their desires on others, leading to competition and inevitable conflict. When these conflicts escalate, societies restore order through scapegoating—a process where collective aggression is redirected toward a chosen victim.

• The scapegoat is arbitrarily selected but serves as a unifying target for communal violence.

• By expelling or destroying the scapegoat, a fragile peace is restored, reinforcing the group's cohesion.

• This cycle repeats, forming the foundation of rituals, myths, and eventually, legal systems that institutionalize controlled violence.

Example: Many ancient sacrificial rites (e.g., the Levitical scapegoat, Aztec human sacrifices) reflect this dynamic, symbolically expelling communal guilt.

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2. The Political Theology of the Scapegoat (Agamben, Schmitt)

• Carl Schmitt’s "State of Exception" describes how sovereignty is defined by the power to suspend laws and designate an enemy—often a scapegoat figure who embodies disorder.

• Giorgio Agamben's "Homo Sacer" builds on this, arguing that societies always produce bare life—people who can be killed without consequence, existing outside legal and moral protection.

• The scapegoat is thus foundational to governance: states function by maintaining a category of the killable other, whether criminals, heretics, immigrants, or the mentally ill.

Example: The treatment of asylum seekers and psychiatric patients often mirrors the homo sacer condition—figures neither fully inside nor outside the law, abandoned yet controlled.

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4. Scapegoating as Structural: Marxist and Postcolonial Perspectives

Beyond individual or ritual dynamics, scapegoating is built into economic and colonial systems:

• Marx: Capitalism thrives on creating disposable classes (e.g., surplus labor, criminalized underclasses) to absorb systemic instability.

• Frantz Fanon: Colonialism relies on racialized scapegoats to maintain hierarchy—colonizers define themselves against the "inferior" colonized subject.

Example: Economic downturns often result in scapegoating.