Political Disempowerment &

Conflict Resolution
Definitions of Political Alienation (PA)
Definition

“To be politically alienated is to feel a relatively enduring sense of estrangement from

existing institutions, values and leaders. At the far end of the continuum, the politically
alienated feel themselves outsiders, trapped in an alien political order; they would welcome
fundamental changes in the ongoing regimes. By contrast, the politically allegiant feel
themselves an integral part of the political system; they belong to it psychologically and
legally. Allegiant citizens evaluate the regime positively, see it as morally worthy, and believe
it has a legitimate claim to their loyalty.” (Citrin et al, 1975, p. 3)
Definition

Allegiance vs. alienation continuum (Citrin et al., 1975)

 Feelings of closeness/distance, attachment/separation or identification/rejection

Political Alienation
(1) informed rejection of the existing political system
(2) uninformed non-participation
Definition

Affective vs. cognitive components (Citrin et al, 1975)

 Affective
 feeling separate, isolated, rejected, alienated

 Cognitive
 reasons for these feelings (e.g., untrustworthy public officials, existing
parties’ failure to provide meaningful choices, institutions unresponsive to
public demands)
Dimensions (Finifter, 1970)

Political powerlessness
 political (in)efficacy

Political meaninglessness
 political decisions are perceived as unpredictable

Perceived political normlessness

 break down of the norms regulating political behaviour/decisions; corruption

Political isolation
 rejection of goals and norms widely held by other members of society
EMPOWERMENT

Empowerment: development of a social-psychological state of

confidence in one’s ability to change existing relations of
domination
• Neglect in the literature:
• Agency (power, empowerment) as a function of politicized
collective identity
• Despite its importance (subjectively/theoretically) this
agency or empowerment function has been under-
researched (Simon & Klandermans, 2001)

 Research has concentrated on subjective power as a PRECONDITION for

action- but it is also of interest as an outcome
‘Collective Action’

 “A group member engages in collective action any time that he or she is acting as a
representative of the group and where the action is directed at improving the conditions of
the group as a whole” (Wright et al., 1990, p. 995)
Rational Actor Approaches

 Individual costs and benefits

 Protest as a social dilemma – free riders

 Mobilisation is about dealing with free riders

 Resource mobilisation theory

 Material resources that reduce costs of participation
Irrationality: early accounts

 Early crowd psychology

 Submergence
 Contagion
 Hypnotic suggestibility

 Frustration-aggression hypothesis
 Frustration: interference with basic need satisfaction (e.g. Hunger)
 Arousal
 Displacement
Relative Deprivation

 Unrest
 Doesn’t come in the hardest times
 Doesn’t principally involve the most deprived individuals in absolute terms

 The experience of deprivation is relative

 Not an absolute standard, but a relative one
 Must involve a comparison to some standard of entitlement or expectation
 People to see things as unjust when they are relatively rather than absolutely deprived
Conflict Resolution

 The importance of Conflict Resolution research.

 Contact Theory

 Extensions of Contact
 Frustration-aggression reloaded (Berkowitz, 1972)
 According to Berkowitz:
 Social scientists
overestimate the rationality
of social unrest
 Frustration originates in
unrealised expectations (thus
linked to RD)
 Exacerbated through arousal
(from heat, noise, etc.)
 Impulsive aggression
2 traditions

Frustration-aggression/deindividuation Rational actor/resource mobilization

 Displacement of biological drives  Based on cost-benefit analysis

 Loss of control  No different from any other behaviour

 Deviation from normal, reasoned  Individual self-interest

behaviour
Belief structures and strategies for improving social identity (image from Hogg & Vaughan, 2009)
Dual identity and protest among migrants

 CA more of a dilemma for immigrants – will it be interpreted as disloyalty, lack of integration, etc.

 Dual identity (Simon & Ruhs, 2008)

 “I feel I belong to both the Turks and the Germans”
 Led to support for political claims in favour of Turks (e.g. economics, education), demonstrations against
xenophobia

 Government unfairness matter more to people when they have a dual identity (Klandermans et al.,
2008)
 Unfairness hurts more if you see yourself as a citizen (see also Blackwood et al., 2012)
 Protest as a sign of belonging?
Dual identity and protest among migrants

 CA more of a dilemma for immigrants – will it be interpreted as disloyalty, lack of integration, etc.

 Dual identity (Simon & Ruhs, 2008)

 “I feel I belong to both the Turks and the Germans”
 Led to support for political claims in favour of Turks (e.g. economics, education), demonstrations against
xenophobia

 Government unfairness matter more to people when they have a dual identity (Klandermans et al.,
2008)
 Unfairness hurts more if you see yourself as a citizen (see also Blackwood et al., 2012)
 Protest as a sign of belonging?
Contact Theory (Allport,1954)

 An intervention that is tailored towards improving intergroup relations via managed,

planned interpersonal contact between two groups.

 The mere contact alone is not the deciding factor, but rather the contextual backgrounds of
said contact.
 Requires 5 main criteria to be met in order for Contact Hypothesis to work:
 Equal Status
 Common Goals
 Intergroup Cooperation
 Support of Authorities
 Personal Interaction

 Failure to meet these criteria can backfire, resulting in increased tensions and prejudice between two
conflicting groups.
 “Rancangan Khas” classes in some Malaysian Secondary Schools.
 Some problems with the Contact Hypothesis
(Dixon, Durrheim, & Tredoux, 2005)

 Basic Contact Hypothesis, while effective, has a tendency to be rather difficult to implement in
society. Especially divided ones. Some examples:
 Contact between stereotypical & non-stereotypical group members. If a group has prejudice towards
Malays, what happens if they meet a non-stereotypical Malay person?

 Interventions can be effective in the lab, or run for a short time, but it is very difficult for contact to be
maintained over longer periods of time.

 Background ‘noise’ that might interfere with intervention.

 Enter: Extensions of Contact

 Extended Contact (Cameron & Rutland, 2006)

 Contact that involves usage of vicarious experiences.

 Direct contact can result in intergroup anxiety (especially with past history)

 Extended Contact allows for circumvention of the difficulty in direct contact due to extreme segregation.
 Imagined Contact (Stathi et al., 2014)
 Similar to Extended Contact. Instead of observing vicarious interactions between groups, Imagined contact
allows for a more active role.

 Participants imagine positive intergroup contact situations.

 Does not require participants to be part of multicultural backgrounds. Effective for low-diversity
populations.

 Does not require direct contact, although it can be used as a prelude to actual contact.
 These Interventions at Play

 Variations of contact have been used in two countries: Northern Ireland & Australia.

 Northern Ireland: Due to past Troubles, there is strong segregation and severe mistrust between
Catholics and Protestants.

 Australia: Presence of strong segregation and mistrust due to the lack of exposure between
Australian Muslim and Australian Christians. Segregated schooling perpetuates this.
Northern Ireland: FACE Project (Padeanu, 2014)
 Involves the British Army wives living in barbed-wire fortresses in the middle of Northern Irish towns.
Constant reminder of history of violence.

 Tries to desegregate army wives and local wives via Managed Contact, which combines elements of
Extended and Direct contact.

 Extended contact used in the form on “Pre-Contact Workshops”, where facilitators meet up with the two
groups (local + army wives).

 Eventually geared towards 1st Contact, where they finally meet and Direct Contact is established.