Social Psychological Explanations of Political Inaction: Citizens’ Perspectives in Brazil, Hungary, and the Netherlands

Abstract

Engaging in political action can ensure adequate political representation for citizens. Except for voting, however, only a nonrepresentative, small group of people regularly engages in political action. Social psychological theories provide individual, group, and system‐level explanations for why people could remain inactive. However, they often focus only on personally held attitudes and do not fully consider the dynamics of attitude formation in interactions. Based on 26 focus group discussions conducted in Brazil, Hungary, and the Netherlands, we explored how citizens explain political inaction. We used latent thematic analysis, informed by social psychological theories, to understand how people form opinions about their own and others’ political inaction. In all three countries, the prevalent norm in the focus group discussions was that political inaction should be reduced but a lack of political efficacy constituted a core theme in explaining why people remain politically inactive. Depending on the sociopolitical context and how people self‐categorized within the discussions, people blamed unresponsive governments, or cited personal fears of repercussions and cultural differences within and between countries as reasons for inaction. The findings and interpretations are discussed within a framework that extends and integrates previous perspectives on why people remain politically inactive.

Interplay between different forms of power and meritocratic considerations shapes fairness perceptions

“…Many scholars attribute the absence of widespread public demand for wealth and income redistribution to the tendency of high-status and low-status individuals to legitimize inequalities by perceiving them as the outcome of meritocratic processes 5 , 53 . An alternative explanation posits that disadvantaged individuals recognize the unfairness of wealth distribution 54 , 55 , but the imbalance of political power between affluent and poor citizens 56 instills a growing sense of powerlessness that results in political apathy 57 . Our findings are partly consistent with both explanations.…”

Social creativity: Reviving a social identity approach to social stability

“…Societal factors as specified in social identity theory (Rubin & Hewstone, 2004)—a social reality consisting of societal norms and values—and structural factors in the supply of politics (Klandermans, 2004) or political opportunity structure (Koopmans, 1999) together provide a more encompassing framework of factors spurring collective action. Along the same lines, we think that our conceptualization of social creativity can be considered a social psychological dimension in societal phenomena such as persistent inequality, which we outlined at the start of this article, or political inaction (see Klandermans & Van Stekelenburg, 2014; Stroebe et al., 2019; Van Bezouw et al., 2019). Additionally, previous research has shown that social creativity plays a role in classroom settings (Boen & Vanbeselaere, 2001), organizations (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), and sports (Doyle et al., 2017; Jones, 2017); all of which can serve as important contexts in which to examine how the different roles that social creativity can play in bolstering social stability relate to real‐life outcomes.…”

When and why does political trust predict well‐being in authoritarian contexts? Examining the role of political efficacy and collective action among opposition voters

“…We also believe the reduced effect of efficacy in authoritarian contexts should be further studied. It could be that efficacy is not a primary catalyst for collective action in repressive contexts as in democratic contexts (see van Bezouw et al, 2019 for a discussion). Rather, other factors may be at play.…”