An integrative social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) is developed that incorporates 3 socio-psychological perspectives on collective action. Three meta-analyses synthesized a total of 182 effects of perceived injustice, efficacy, and identity on collective action (corresponding to these socio-psychological perspectives). Results showed that, in isolation, all 3 predictors had medium-sized (and causal) effects. Moreover, results showed the importance of social identity in predicting collective action by supporting SIMCA's key predictions that (a) affective injustice and politicized identity produced stronger effects than those of non-affective injustice and non-politicized identity; (b) identity predicted collective action against both incidental and structural disadvantages, whereas injustice and efficacy predicted collective action against incidental disadvantages better than against structural disadvantages; (c) all 3 predictors had unique medium-sized effects on collective action when controlling for between-predictor covariance; and (d) identity bridged the injustice and efficacy explanations of collective action. Results also showed more support for SIMCA than for alternative models reflecting previous attempts at theoretical integration. The authors discuss key implications for theory, practice, future research, and further integration of social and psychological perspectives on collective action.

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Toward an integrative social identity model of collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives

A model of egoistical relative deprivation.

Work on ethnic and nationalist violence has emerged from two largely nonintersecting literatures: studies of ethnic conflict and studies of political violence. Only recently have the former begun to attend to the dynamics of violence and the latter to the dynamics of ethnicization. Since the emergent literature on ethnic violence is not structured by clearly defined theoretical oppositions, we organize our review by broad similarities of methodological approach: (a) Inductive work at various levels of aggregation seeks to identify the patterns, mechanisms, and recurrent processes implicated in ethnic violence. (b) Theory-driven work employs models of rational action drawn from international relations theory, game theory, and general rational action theory. (c) Culturalist work highlights the discursive, symbolic, and ritualistic aspects of ethnic violence. We conclude with a plea for the disaggregated analysis of the heterogeneous phenomena we too casually lump together as iethnic violence.i

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/223488.pdf

Ethnic and Nationalist Violence

This article describes some results of a successful attempt to assess and refine a causal model of the general conditions of several forms of civil strife, using cross-sectional analyses of data collected for 114 polities. The theoretical argument, which is discussed in detail elsewhere, stipulates a set of variables said to determine the likelihood and magnitude of civil strife. Considerable effort was given here to devising indices that represent the theoretical variables more closely than the readily-available aggregate indices often used in quantitative cross-national research. One consequence is an unusually high degree of statistical explanation: measures of five independent variables jointly account for two-thirds of the variance among nations in magnitude of civil strife (R = .80, R2 = .64).It should be noted at the outset that this study does not attempt to isolate the set of conditions that leads specifically to “revolution,” nor to assess the social or political impact of any given act of strife except as that impact is reflected in measures of “magnitude” of strife. The relevance of this kind of research to the classic concern of political scholarship with revolution is its attempt at identification and systematic analysis of conditions that dispose men to strife generally, revolution included.

/pdf/a-causal-model-of-civil-strife-a-comparative-analysis-using-2vtlh9rxlp.pdf

A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices

J. Eric Oliver is Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University,Robertson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 (eoliver@wws.princeton.edu). Tali Mendelberg isAssistant Professor of Politics, Princeton University, Corwin Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544(talim@princeton.edu).We are grateful to Paul Sniderman for making the zip codes available from the 1991Race and Politics Study. This paper was greatly improved by the comments of LarryBartels, Lisa D’Ambrosio, Martin Gilens, Don Green, Taekou Lee, Karen Stenner, andthe anonymous reviewers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1998Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Montreal, Canada.

/pdf/reconsidering-the-environmental-determinants-of-white-racial-211sztiiei.pdf

Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants of White Racial Attitudes

Until recently many political scientists tended to regard violent civil conflict as a disfigurement of the body politic, neither a significant nor a proper topic for their empirical inquiries. The attitude was in part our legacy from Thomas Hobbes's contention that violence is the negation of political order, a subject fit less for study than for admonition. Moreover, neither the legalistic nor the institutional approaches that dominated traditional political science could provide much insight into group action that was regarded by definition as illegal and the antithesis of institutionalized political life.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0043887100014908

Ted Gurr

Papers

A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices

Psychological Factors in Civil Violence