‘This country is OURS’: The exclusionary potential of collective psychological ownership

Abstract

Political campaign slogans, such as 'Take back control of our country' (United Kingdom Independence Party) and 'The Netherlands ours again' (Dutch Party for Freedom), indicate that right-wing populism appeals to the belief that the country is 'ours', and therefore, 'we' have the exclusive right to determine what happens. We examined this sense of ownership of the country (i.e. collective psychological ownership [CPO]) with the related determination right in relation to exclusionary attitudes and voting behaviour. Among Dutch (Study 1, N = 572) and British (Study 2, N = 495) participants, we found that CPO explained anti-immigrant and anti-EU attitudes, and these attitudes in turn accounted for voting 'leave' in the 2016 Brexit referendum in the British sample (Study 2). Additionally, CPO was more strongly related to negative immigrant attitudes among right-wing Dutch participants, whereas it was more strongly related to negative EU attitudes and voting 'leave' among left-wing British participants. CPO contributes to the understanding of critical contemporary social attitudes and political behaviour. Through such political campaign slogans as 'Take back control of our country' and 'The Netherlands ours again', right-wing populist parties (United Kingdom Independence Party and Dutch Party for Freedom, respectively) endeavour to appeal to beliefs that the country is 'ours' and therefore 'we' are its rightful owners. These political parties appeal to people's sense of ownership and the (arguably) related exclusive determination right to back up opposition to immigration and European integration (

Longing for the “good old days” of our country: National nostalgia as a new master‐frame of populist radical right parties

“…This belief excludes newcomers from national in‐group membership, as they do not fit the ancestry requirement. Consistent with this reasoning, endorsement of ethnic nationhood is related to negative attitudes toward immigrant out‐groups (Martinovic & Verkuyten, 2013; Nijs et al., 2020; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2015).…”

Support for Conciliatory Policies in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Role of Different Modes of Identification and Territorial Ownership Perceptions

“…In line with this reasoning, ingroup ownership perceptions among native populations in Western European contexts have been found to be associated with more negative attitudes toward immigrants (Brylka et al, 2015;Torunczyk-Ruiz and Martinović, 2020;Nijs et al, 2021). Similarly, in conflict contexts, people who perceive more strongly that the contested territory belongs to their ingroup tend to be less willing to forgive members of the rival outgroup or to promote positive intergroup relations (Storz et al, 2020).…”

Losing what is OURS: The intergroup consequences of collective ownership threat

“…Ownership implies normative and moral rights, privileges, and responsibilities, and is codified in laws and legal regulations concerning, for example, theft, trespassing, and copyright. Ownership is accompanied by a "determination right" (Merrill, 1998;Nijs et al, 2020;Snare, 1972). The right to determine and control what one owns is rather intuitive, and developmental research has shown that preschool children already recognize that the person who controls the use of an object, owns it (Neary et al, 2009).…”

“…People can have a sense of collective ownership of a country, despite the abstract nature of "the country" as an entity (Brylka et al, 2015;Nijs et al, 2020;Selvanathan et al, 2020;Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2017). For example, a vast majority of Dutch and British natives were found to have at least some sense of collective ownership of their country (Nijs et al, 2020). A threat to country ownership can result in marking and defending behavior by using ownership rhetoric, exhibiting country flags, implementing stricter border controls, or building a wall.…”