Jacquelien van Stekelenburg

The social psychology of protest

Social psychological research has taught us a lot about why people protest. This article provides a theoretical and empirical overview. Discussed are grievances, efficacy, identification, emotions and social embeddedness, followed by the most recent approaches, which combine these concepts into dual pathway models. Finally, two future directions are discussed: (1) to shed light on the paradox of persistent participation, and (2) to clarify how perceptions of sociopolitical context affects protest participation.

Social dominance in context and in individuals: Contextual moderation of robust effects of social dominance orientation in 15 languages and 20 countries.

We tested the internal reliability and predictive validity of a new 4-item Short Social Dominance Orientation (SSDO) scale among adults in 20 countries, using 15 languages (N = 2,130). Low scores indicate preferring group inclusion and equality to dominance. As expected, cross-nationally, the lower people were on SSDO, the more they endorsed more women in leadership positions, protecting minorities, and aid to the poor. Multilevel moderation models showed that each effect was stronger in nations where a relevant kind of group power differentiation was more salient. Distributions of SSDO were positively skewed, despite use of an extended response scale; results show rejecting group hierarchy is normative. The short scale is effective. Challenges regarding translations, use of short scales, and intersections between individual and collective levels in social dominance theory are discussed.

International support for the Arab uprisings: Understanding sympathetic collective action using theories of social dominance and social identity

Inspired by the popular Arab protests against oppressive regimes that began in 2010, people around the world protested in sympathy with the Arab peoples. The present research draws on two major theories of intergroup relations to develop an initial integrative model of sympathetic collective action. We incorporate social dominance theory’s (SDT) concept of (rejectionist) legitimizing myths with the solidarity and emotional mediation concept of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) to understand motivations for sympathetic collective action among bystanders. Using data from 12 nations (N = 1,480), we tested three models: (a) SIMCA (i.e., solidarity, anger, and efficacy), (b) a social dominance theory model of collective action (i.e., social dominance orientation and ideologies concerning Arab competence), and (c) an integrated model of sympathetic collective action combining both theories. Results find the greatest support for an integrated model of collective action. Discussion focuses on theoretical pluralism and suggestions for future research.

Taking austerity to the streets: Fighting austerity measures or austerity states

We present data on eighteen demonstrations against austerity politics. A distinction is made between demonstrations against the austerity measures governments are taking (11) and demonstrations against the governments that are taking these measures (7). In total, 3434 demonstrators completed a survey questionnaire inquiring about demographic characteristics, social and political embeddedness, mobilization channels, satisfaction with the way democracy works in their country, identification and motivation. We propose a theoretical framework for the comparison of participants in the two types of demonstrations. Employing anovas, manovas, and logistic regression analyses hypotheses derived from the theoretical framework are tested. With a proportion of correct classifications of 75.6% our model was able to satisfactorily account for the differences between the two types of demonstrations.

Comparing street demonstrations

This introductory article provides a short account of the theoretical framework and the methodological set-up of a comparative study of street demonstrations. The following articles in this issue report results from this study. The data on over 90 street demonstrations and more than 17,000 participants were collected between November 2009 and Summer 2012 in nine different countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. This introductory article presents the focal theme of the project – the impact of contextual variation on mobilization dynamics, the composition of the crowd and the demonstrators’ motives. The various contextual layers we are distinguishing are discussed. Following the theoretical framework the methodological set-up is presented. Identical measures and procedures are employed in all individual protest surveys. This introduction discusses the sampling procedures; but as each article concerns a different set of measures, the selection employed is discussed in the individual articles. The introduction concludes with an overview of the articles included.

Individuals in Movements

Social psychology is interested in how social context influences individuals’ behavior. The prototypical social psychological question related to collective action is that of why some individuals participate in social movements while others do not, or for that matter, why some individuals decide to quit while others stay involved. The social psychological answer to these questions is given in terms of typical psychological processes such as identity, cognition, motivation, and emotion. People—social psychologists never tire of asserting—live in a perceived world. They respond to the world as they perceive and interpret it, and if we want to understand their cognitions, motivations, and emotions we need to know their perceptions and interpretations. Hence, social psychology focuses on subjective variables and takes the individual as its unit of analysis.

Protesting youth: Collective and connective action participation compared

“Twitter protests” and “Facebook revolutions” imbue the coverage of contentious politics in news media and academic outlets alike. As long as such protests are not compared to conventional mobilized events it is hard to ascertain the supposed differences between connective and collective action. We report a study that does just that: we examine if it makes a difference whether people are recruited through self-organized rather than organization-centered routes. We surveyed participants and nonparticipants in both actions (N = 319), asking who participated in the respective action, how they were mobilized, and why they participated. Results reveal that in some ways the recruitment route does make a difference, while in others it doesn’t. Recruits of connective action were lower educated, felt politically efficacious, and mainly mobilized via informal (virtual) mobilizing channels, while recruits of collective action were highly educated, politically interested, and mainly mobilized via formal mobilizing channels. Social embeddedness played a crucial role in both campaigns, but more so in self-organized actions: approving networks increase the chances of being asked, influenced, and motivated by significant others, while disapproving milieus decrease the chance of being asked, influenced, and motivated by others. Approving networks thus expand informal mobilization, the more so for self-organized connective action.

Dealing with austerity measures within armed forces: The Dutch case

ABSTRACT This article studies how Dutch military personnel respond to austerity-related discontent. Based on the online survey (N = 579) conducted among military personnel we investigate 4 response strategies to austerity measures applied in the Dutch armed forces: voice (collective protest), exit (leaving the organization), silence (deliberately deciding not to protest), and neglect (engaging in anti-organizational behavior). We focus on how personnel combine these strategies and apply cluster analysis to identify 6 typical response patterns that we label as protesters, escapers, quiescents, conformers, obstructionists and combaters. We investigate how personal characteristics and perception of unique military environment influence the response of military personnel. We conclude that clusters we described are not only distinct in their behavior—their personal characteristics and perceptions differ as well.

Friends in High Places: Anger and Frustration among Protesters When Their Political Allies Fail Them

Scholars working from the political opportunity approach have upheld the notion that the political context sets the grievances around which activist mobilizes. Inspired by Tarrow and colleagues plea to explain political activism by analyzing how activists are mobilized, this article focuses on the individual protester. The research question in this article reads how are activist’s protest emotions shaped by characteristics of the political context, specifically by their political alliances? We focus on the emotional constellation evoked by environmental issues (e.g., climate change and nuclear energy) with Green Parties as movement allies and anti-austerity issues with Social Democratic parties as movement allies. Specifically, the parliamentary position of these allies is linked to the relative stake anger and frustration have within the emotional constellation of demonstrators. Results are based on survey data collected among 6,598 demonstrators, and their emotions dispersed over 28 demonstrations in seven European countries. We conclude that having a politically well-connected friend seems to matter more to demonstrators’ emotional constellation than the ideological support provided by that friend.

When the Internet meets collective action: The traditional and creative ways of political participation in China:

With the rapid development and wide popularity of the Internet, Chinese people have acquired a revolutionary channel to mobilize collective action and to participate in politics. In order to depict the various factors influencing online collective action in China, and to further explore the dynamic interaction between the Chinese authorities and the public in this new era of collective action, the article attempts to integrate the demand-supply model with relevant studies from both China and abroad to make a systematic analysis of the demand, supply and mobilization of Chinese online activism. The impact of the new communication technology on political participation and the political ecology is discussed and questions are raised for future research.