Endorsing a Civic (vs. an Ethnic) Definition of Citizenship Predicts Higher Pro-minority and Lower Pro-majority Collective Action Intentions

Abstract

Europe has witnessed a polarization of intergroup attitudes and action tendencies in the context of the refugee crisis of 2015 and the rise of right-wing populism. Participation in both pro-minority collective action and right-wing nationalist movements has increased among members of ethnic majority groups. We analyzed these collective action intentions toward Roma people and Muslim immigrants in Hungary related to concepts of citizenship. In an online survey relying on a probabilistic sample that is demographically similar to the Hungarian population (N = 1069), we tested whether relying on the concept of ethnic citizenship predicted higher intentions to engage in pro-majority collective action, and lower intentions to engage in pro-minority collective action, and whether the connection was mediated by fear and empathy. We expected that the connections would be the opposite for civic citizenship. Our results supported the hypotheses, but we found that the ethnic definition was a stronger predictor of intergroup action intentions toward the immigrant group, and the civic definition a stronger predictor in case of the Roma minority group. In a second study (N = 320) we collected experimental evidence to show that civic and ethnic citizenship affected both types of collective action tendencies. We found that the manipulation had an effect on the concept of citizenship only in the ethnic dimension. Nevertheless, it influenced pro-minority collective action intentions especially in the presence of high empathy and low fear in the expected direction, that is, pro-minority collective action intentions were higher in the civic citizenship condition than in the ethnic citizenship condition. The effect was not found with regard to pro-majority collective action intentions. These findings highlight the potential consequences of nationalist rhetoric on intergroup action intentions and point out both the scope and the limits of influencing its effect.

‘We're still here’: Misrecognition and the quest for dual identification of Roma people

“…However, only in the Hungarian sample did we find that misrecognition was negatively associated with national identity. This supports the rejection‐ dis identification hypothesis among Hungarian Roma (Jasinskaja‐Lahti et al, 2009) and may be explained by the attributes and values associated with the Hungarian nation, especially given the political climate in which the study was conducted and which communicates a resistance to ethnic and cultural diversity and inclusion (see Kende et al, 2018).…”

The relationship between collective narcissism and group-based moral exclusion: The mediating role of intergroup threat and social distance

“…i) Study 1 from the publication of Kende, Lantos, and Krekó (2018) was carried out by analyzing data from the same omnibus database, but the hypotheses we tested and the theoretical constructs they were based on were different and unrelated to those tested by Kende and colleagues, since they investigated how the ethnic vs. civic perception of citizenship predicts group-based collective action preferences. The only construct that was used in both studies was intergroup threat, what was considered as a mediator between ethnic perception of citizenship and collective action preferences in the cited study.…”

‘Dutch’ according to children and mothers: Nationality stereotypes and citizenship representation

“…Endorsement of civic citizenship representation, in contrast, relates to less restrictive immigration policies (Reijerse et al., 2014) and more positive immigrant attitudes (Reijerse et al., 2013). Similarly, citizenship representations are related to behavioural intentions: ethnic citizenship representations relate to higher intentions to engage in pro‐majority and lower intentions to engage in pro‐minority collective action, while the opposite is true for civic citizenship representations (Kende et al., 2018).…”