Analysis

What scapegoating is in politics and how it is used to manipulate

By Daniel Sardá · April 23, 2026

# What scapegoating is in politics and how it is used to manipulate

Scapegoating is a technique of political manipulation that consists in attributing the main blame for complex problems to a group, individual or symbolic enemy, even when that actor is not the real cause or bears only partial responsibility. Its political usefulness is obvious: it simplifies reality, channels social frustration, binds a “we” against a “they” and diverts attention away from institutional, economic or governmental failures.

It is not a minor technique. It forms part of the broader repertoire of political propaganda and is related to demagoguery, polarisation, the moralisation of debate and the construction of enemies. To understand the broader framework of these techniques, it is also worth reading the article on demagoguery and political manipulation techniques.

The central thesis can be summarised like this:

Scapegoating is one of the most effective techniques of political manipulation because it transforms complex problems into a simple story of collective guilt. Its danger lies not only in distorting reality, but also in psychologically and politically preparing the ground for exclusion, repression or even violence against entire groups.

What scapegoating means in politics

A political scapegoat is an actor to whom the main responsibility for a crisis or social problem is attributed in order to shift attention, simplify conflict and mobilise emotions.

The basic formula is simple:

“The country is in trouble because of them.”

That “them” can take many forms:

The key lies in the disproportionate attribution of blame. The targeted group does not have to be completely innocent for manipulation to exist. Sometimes there may be partial responsibility, real mistakes or legitimate conflicts. The technique appears when discourse turns that group into the absolute culprit, erases nuance and hides deeper causes.

That is why scapegoating is not simply “criticising someone.” It is transforming an actor into the total explanation of a crisis.

How scapegoating works psychologically

Scapegoating works because it satisfies several emotional and cognitive needs at the same time: it reduces uncertainty, offers a visible culprit, orders conflict and allows frustration to be discharged.

Cognitive simplification

Social problems usually have multiple causes: weak institutions, badly designed incentives, policy mistakes, corruption, external shocks, economic cycles, cultural problems or coordination failures. Scapegoating reduces all of that to an emotionally clear cause.

Examples of the narrative structure are:

This simplification is politically effective because it offers an explanation that is easy to repeat. It does not need to demonstrate the whole causal chain; it only needs to create a sense of moral clarity.

Channelling frustration

In contexts of crisis, fear or loss of status, the population looks for a visible cause of its discomfort. The logic of *scapegoating* holds that aggression may be directed toward groups that did not really cause the frustration, but that are available as a social or political target. EBSCO summarises scapegoat theory as the process through which frustration and aggression are redirected toward a group that did not cause the frustration.

In social psychology, this dynamic is related to the frustration-aggression hypothesis. Britannica explains that *scapegoating* involves generalising stereotyped traits to an entire group and exaggerating its similarities, turning it into a target for social frustrations. See its explanation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis and scapegoating.

Creation of group identity

The technique divides the world into two blocs:

This produces internal cohesion. The leader, party or movement appears as the protector of the threatened group. Politics ceases to be a discussion about real problems and becomes an emotional defense against an enemy.

Gradual dehumanisation

Scapegoating usually advances through stages:

1. targeting; 2. stereotyping; 3. collective guilt; 4. dehumanisation; 5. legal exclusion; 6. violence or repression.

The UN warns that hate speech against protected groups can escalate toward violence, atrocities and international crimes. That is why this technique should not be treated as a mere rhetorical exaggeration. In certain contexts, it can prepare the ground for real harm.

Scapegoating according to René Girard

From René Girard’s cultural theory, the scapegoat mechanism allows a community to dissipate internal tensions by redirecting violence toward an *outsider*, whose expulsion or sacrifice temporarily restores social cohesion. Britannica summarises this point in its explanation of the scapegoat mechanism in René Girard’s theory.

The idea is useful for thinking about politics. When a society goes through a crisis, internal conflict can become unbearable. The scapegoat offers an emotional exit: instead of recognising one’s own failures, deteriorated institutions or mistaken decisions, tension is concentrated on a visible enemy. The community feels momentarily united because everyone is looking at the same culprit.

The problem is that this cohesion is false or fragile. It does not solve the real cause of the conflict. It merely displaces it.

Why leaders use scapegoats in times of crisis

Political leaders use scapegoats because the technique produces immediate benefits.

It provides a simple explanation

Complex crises generate anxiety. A technical explanation may be true, but difficult to communicate. The scapegoat offers an emotionally direct explanation.

It diverts responsibility

It serves to shield the government, the party, the leader or the system from direct responsibility. If the blame lies with “them,” then power does not have to answer for its own decisions.

It activates strong emotions

It works especially well with fear, resentment, humiliation, economic insecurity or a sense of cultural loss. Politics stops appealing to reasons and begins mobilising anger.

It justifies exceptional measures

Once the enemy has been constructed, power can present controls, censorship, confiscations, deportations, detentions or violence as “necessary defense.”

It lowers the moral cost of repression

If the targeted group is seen as an existential threat, the population may tolerate abuses it would previously have rejected. Punishment ceases to look like injustice and begins to look like protection.

Conditions that favour scapegoating

Not every crisis produces scapegoats, but some conditions greatly increase the likelihood that the technique will prosper:

The technique is usually more effective when society is already anxious, divided or predisposed to look for culprits.

The stages of scapegoating: from blame to punishment

Scapegoating often operates as a gradual process.

Stage 1: naming the culprit

First a group is identified and turned into a political category:

The label matters. It condenses fear, resentment and suspicion.

Stage 2: attributing total causality

The group is presented as the cause of various evils:

The wider the evil attributed, the more useful the enemy becomes.

Stage 3: erasing individuality

There are no longer concrete persons. There is a homogeneous guilty mass. The individual disappears behind the category.

Stage 4: demanding punishment or purge

The political solution then appears as elimination, expulsion, confiscation, surveillance, censorship or neutralisation.

Stage 5: repetition and normalisation

Propaganda turns what was initially an extreme accusation into common sense. What at first seemed exaggerated ends up looking obvious.

Historical examples of political scapegoating

Scapegoating has appeared in authoritarian regimes, populist movements, wartime contexts, economic crises, revolutionary processes and propaganda campaigns. It does not belong to a single ideology.

Nazi Germany and the Jews

The Nazi case is the paradigmatic example. Nazi propaganda attributed responsibility for Germany’s economic, political, cultural and racial problems to Jews. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains that antisemites have historically used Jews as scapegoats and falsely blamed them for broad social problems. In the Nazi case, that antisemitism was central to the systematic persecution and murder of six million European Jews. See the USHMM explanation of antisemitism and scapegoating.

Nazi propaganda also defined “the enemy” as a central piece of its ideology. The USHMM notes that a key part of Nazi ideology was defining who threatened the supposed Aryan race, and that propaganda identified Jews as the main enemy. See its resource on how Nazism defined the enemy.

How the technique operated

Germany came out of military defeat, economic crisis, prior hyperinflation, unemployment and resentment after Versailles. The Nazis offered simple explanations. Jews were presented as conspirators, corrupters, internal enemies and the cause of decline.

Propaganda turned old prejudices into state policy. The result was legal exclusion, expropriation, ghettoisation, deportation and genocide.

Political lesson

Scapegoating can begin as electoral propaganda and end as exterminatory policy when it is combined with a totalitarian state, dehumanisation and a coercive apparatus.

The Soviet Union and the kulaks

During forced collectivisation, the Soviet regime turned the kulaks — relatively more prosperous peasants, or simply those labelled as such — into class enemies responsible for agricultural failure, rural resistance and supply problems.

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota explains that successful peasants who opposed collectivisation were labelled “kulaks” by Soviet propaganda, declared enemies of the state and eliminated as a class; that elimination served to warn opponents, transfer confiscated land and eliminate rural leadership. See its guide on Holodomor, collectivisation and kulaks.

Sciences Po Mass Violence also notes that Stalin justified his attack on kulaks by describing them as a threat to the survival of the Soviet regime, supposedly because they refused to sell grain to the state. See its analysis of dekulakisation and mass violence.

How the technique operated

The regime needed to impose collectivisation. Problems of production and peasant resistance were attributed to “kulak sabotage.” The category expanded from “rich peasant” to “political enemy.” The blame for structural failures of state policy was displaced onto a social group.

The label justified deportations, confiscations and violence.

Political lesson

The scapegoat is not always ethnic or religious. It can also be class-based.

The United States and Japanese Americans during the Second World War

After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government ordered the exclusion and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry. The National Park Service notes that almost 113,000 people of Japanese ancestry lived on the West Coast and that two-thirds were U.S. citizens. It also states that no person of Japanese ancestry living in the U.S. was convicted of a serious act of espionage or sabotage during the war, yet they were removed from their homes and sent to relocation centres. See its resource on the history of Japanese American internment.

The National Archives explain that the attack on Pearl Harbor unleashed fear about national security, especially on the West Coast, and that Executive Order 9066 led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans. See its material on Japanese Relocation during World War II.

How the technique operated

There was a real attack: Pearl Harbor. But suspicion was collectively transferred to an entire population. Ethnic ancestry was treated as an indicator of threat. Fundamental rights were suspended under an argument of national security.

Political lesson

Scapegoating can operate even in constitutional democracies, especially under wartime fear. It does not necessarily require a totalitarian regime.

Rwanda and propaganda against the Tutsis

Before and during the 1994 genocide, extremist Hutu propaganda presented Tutsis as an existential threat. AP recalls that in 1994 Hutu extremists killed around 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis. See its coverage of the Rwandan genocide and its commemorations.

Genocidal propaganda in Rwanda did not merely blame the targeted group; it dehumanised it and turned it into a legitimate target. The literature on propaganda and genocide identifies Rwanda as a central example of how media and leaders can distort information, construct threat and facilitate mass violence. See the study on propaganda and genocide.

How the technique operated

The Tutsi was constructed as an internal enemy. The group was associated with military threat and conspiracy. Extremist media normalised dehumanising language. Violence was presented as communal self-defense.

Political lesson

Scapegoating becomes lethal when it is combined with mass propaganda, militias, institutional collapse and direct incitement.

Myanmar and the Rohingya

The persecution of the Rohingya also shows a logic of ethnic-religious scapegoating. The UN has warned that hate speech against minorities can incite violence, atrocities and international crimes. See its explanation of groups affected by hate speech.

In 2018, UN investigators said that Facebook had played a “determining role” in feeding hatred and incitement against the Rohingya in Myanmar, according to *Time*’s coverage based on statements from the UN fact-finding mission. See *Time*’s report on Facebook, Myanmar and violence against the Rohingya.

How the technique operated

A minority was presented as foreign, dangerous or incompatible with the nation. Hate speech spread. Propaganda facilitated social acceptance of expulsion, violence and persecution.

Political lesson

In the digital age, scapegoating can be amplified by social networks, viral rumours and algorithmic disinformation.

Immigrants as scapegoats in contemporary crises

In present-day democracies, one frequent form of this technique is to blame immigrants for unemployment, crime, pressure on public services or cultural loss. This does not mean that every debate on immigration is *scapegoating*. The technique appears when an entire group is transformed into a simplified cause of complex problems.

A study in *International Migration Review* notes that, in contexts of crisis, immigrants often become likely targets of *scapegoating* because of the increased political salience of immigration, especially after the European migration crisis of 2015–2016. See the study on crisis, immigration and scapegoating.

An article in the *British Journal of Political Science* on economic shocks and immigration notes that, during recessions, politicians often blame immigrants as the source of economic and social problems. See Cambridge University Press’s analysis of economic shocks and attitudes toward immigration.

How the technique operates

A real problem is taken: employment, housing, security or public services. Then it is reduced to a single cause: immigrants. Factors such as economic policy, productivity, regulation, organised crime, the welfare state, the judicial system or the labour market are omitted. Finally, punitive measures are proposed against the targeted group.

Political lesson

Migration-related *scapegoating* can coexist with real problems of integration or border management. Manipulation appears when discourse substitutes causal analysis with collective blame.

How to distinguish legitimate criticism from scapegoating

Not every criticism of a group, institution or actor is manipulation. This distinction is essential so the concept does not become trivial.

Legitimate criticism

Legitimate criticism:

Example: saying “a specific network committed documented fraud” is not scapegoating.

Scapegoating

A scapegoat discourse:

Example: saying “all members of that group are responsible for national decline” does approach the technique.

The difference lies in causal precision. Legitimate criticism identifies facts, responsible actors and evidence. Scapegoating turns an entire category into a morally guilty bloc.

Signals for detecting the technique

Discursive signals

Some typical phrases are:

These expressions do not by themselves prove the whole mechanism, but they are warning signs.

Political signals

It is also useful to observe political conduct:

Media signals

In media and on networks, the technique may appear as:

Political functions of the scapegoat

Function of distraction

It hides government mistakes, corruption, poor management or structural failures. Public discussion shifts away from real responsibility and toward a convenient enemy.

Function of cohesion

It unites the political base against a common enemy. Group identity is strengthened through opposition.

Function of legitimation

It allows the leader to be presented as protector. If an absolute threat exists, power presents itself as the necessary shield.

Function of purge

It justifies expulsions, confiscations, imprisonment, censorship, deportations or purges.

Function of ideological simplification

It turns a complex political doctrine into an emotional narrative. Policies no longer need to be explained; enemies only have to be pointed out.

Relation to populism, authoritarianism and propaganda

Scapegoating does not belong exclusively to one ideology. It can be used by the right, the left, nationalisms, revolutionary movements, military dictatorships, theocracies or democracies in crisis.

However, it is especially compatible with:

The populism of fear tends to construct threats and propose culprits in order to mobilise politically. The ECPS describes populism of fear as a way in which populist parties construct real or imagined dangers and propose scapegoats to blame.

The important point is this: the technique does not by itself define an ideology. It defines a form of manipulation.

Why it is not enough to say “it is propaganda”

Scapegoating is more specific than propaganda in general.

Propaganda

Propaganda seeks to persuade, mobilise or control perceptions.

Scapegoating

Scapegoating is propaganda based on displaced blame.

Its minimum structure is:

1. there is a crisis; 2. power needs an explanation; 3. a convenient enemy is identified; 4. excessive causality is attributed to it; 5. punishment or exclusion is demanded; 6. the population obtains emotional relief.

That is why not all propaganda uses scapegoats, but every political scapegoat can function as propaganda.

Why this technique is dangerous for a free society

From a classical liberal or libertarian perspective, scapegoating is especially dangerous because it attacks basic principles:

Liberalism tends to ask:

That is why scapegoating is an anti-liberal technique: it replaces individual responsibility with collective guilt.

The problem is not only that it lies about the causes of a crisis. The problem is that it creates social permission to punish someone for it.

Risks of factual overreach when talking about scapegoats

If the concept is to be used well, exaggerations must be avoided.

Do not assert without evidence

It is unwise to say automatically:

Formulate with precision

Better:

“The discourse uses scapegoating elements when it attributes total or disproportionate responsibility for complex problems to a group.”

Worse:

“Every criticism of that group is fascism.”

Differentiate levels

To analyse a political discourse, one should distinguish:

This precision prevents the concept from becoming a generic insult.

Useful questions for identifying a scapegoat

When faced with a political discourse that points to culprits, it is worth asking:

1. Are concrete persons being blamed, or an entire group? 2. Is there evidence proportionate to the accusation? 3. Are multiple causes recognised? 4. Is responsibility of government or specific institutions being concealed? 5. Are stereotypes being used? 6. Is collective punishment being proposed? 7. Is the targeted group being dehumanised? 8. Is a crisis being used to expand power? 9. Is dissent being fused with treason? 10. Is the proposed solution verifiable, or merely punitive?

These questions help separate legitimate criticism from manipulation.

Conclusion

Scapegoating is one of the oldest and most dangerous techniques of political manipulation. Its strength lies in transforming complex problems into a simple story of collective guilt. Instead of analysing causes, incentives, institutions or concrete decisions, it offers an enemy that is easy to hate.

That is why it is so effective in times of crisis. It reduces uncertainty, discharges frustration, unites the in-group and allows power to divert responsibility. But its effectiveness is also its danger: when collective guilt becomes normalised, exclusion, repression and violence become easier to justify.

The key is not to deny that real responsibilities exist in politics. The key is not to allow individual responsibility to be replaced by collective guilt, nor legitimate criticism to become symbolic or material persecution of entire groups.

From a liberal perspective, the central point is clear:

a free society cannot be sustained on collective punishment, permanent enemies and fabricated culprits. It needs individual responsibility, evidence, due process, limits on power and rejection of political dehumanisation.