Support and Nonsupport for Nationalist Rebellion: A Prospect Theory Approach

Abstract

Prospect theory has been advanced as one way to link intentional rebellious action and the influence of social conditions on individual decisions to support such action. This study extends the application of prospect theory by explaining tendencies toward action or inaction among individuals within identical social contexts. Put simply, the way in which people define reference points has an effect on how they perceive violent options. These perceptions may invoke inaction biases among members of a constituent community. This explanation is explored with illustrative examples drawn from interviews with individuals who supported or did not support rebellious action in Northern Ireland (in 1998) and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (in 1999). The interview data suggest that territorial demands are an important factor in how rebellious options are perceived.KEY WORDS: prospect theory, collective action, ethnonational rebellion, territoriality Students of political behavior in general, and of violent behavior specifically, must at some point address the issue of participation versus nonparticipation. Participants in violent action engage in, or threaten, coercion for political ends. The costs of participation tend to be very high; the benefit of such action is a simple public good shared equally by all, regardless of whether they participate. As such, the tendency to free-ride on the efforts of others is strong, hence few participants seek the public good. However, to acquire the public good often requires that many people participate. Thus, the task facing rebels is to overcome free riding in order to acquire the public good.In Mark Irving Lichbach's The Rebel 's Dilemma (1995), the author identifies a series of solutions to the free-rider problem, all centering on how to alter costbenefit analysis in order to mobilize potential participants. One solution is referred to as "changing the type of public good" or "seeking public bads" (Lichbach, 1995, p. 107). In basic form, the solution suggests: "The initial task of the revo-

The Origin of Terrorist Threats: Religious, Separatist, or Something Else?

“…Pending the accomplishment of the nationalist goal the groups then believe that Palestine should be governed through Islamic legal principles. 26 Placing such groups within an exclusive religious category is the same as placing The only characteristic of the new terrorism that is fundamentally unimpeachable is the increasing lethality of terrorist actions. There has been a 3 fold increase in the number of mass casualty incidents since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.…”

Prospect theory, mitigation and adaptation to climate change

“…Instead, they set up a model of consumption behaviour based on PT and incorporate a reference point which is defined by the consumer's "rational expectations held in the recent past about outcomes" Rabin 2007, page 1133). Other authors argue for personal goals as potential reference points (Camerer et al 1997;Farber 2008;Heath et al 1999;Masters 2004). Another perspective is that a "safe option" is used as the reference, e.g.…”

“…Table 1 summarises the various possibilities how to define the reference point regarding climate change. (Hulme et al 2009) Average temperature of the recent, personally experienced past Safe outcome (Bleichrodt et al 2001;Hershey and Schoemaker 1985;Schmidt 2012) Temperature which is already seen as certain given the past greenhouse gas emissions Target (Camerer et al 1997;Farber 2008;Heath et al 1999;Masters 2004) Intended temperature ("two-degreetarget") Rational expectation (Köszegi and Rabin 2007;Köszegi and Rabin 2006) Expected temperature in a given decision horizon and emission scenario This paper does not argue for one specific viewpoint, but shall draw the attention to the fact that which climatic situation is perceived as the reference is an unresolved question. The reason why this is important for mitigation and adaptation will be elaborated in the following subsection.…”

“…Note that there is empirical evidence suggesting that collective action sometimes is better described by PT than by EUT (Fanis 2004;Masters 2004). Rosenman et al apply PT to the decision where to site a nuclear waste repository (Rosenman et al 1988).…”

“…Yet, there are few psychological field studies which elicit the reference points of individuals in different contexts: Creyer and Ross Jr define the reference point regarding the ethical behaviour of firms as the respective consumers' expectations and elicit these by a series of questionnaire items (Creyer and Ross Jr 1997). Another way -if individual goals are assumed as reference points -is to conduct personal interviews on satisfaction with current states and to derive the reference points accordingly (Masters 2004). These examples show that first a specific reference point concept has to be assumed (e.g.…”