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One of the most fascinating and puzzling features of collective action is the fact that people undertake potentially high-risk protests with little likelihood of reward. Take the widespread protests of early October 1989 in East Germany which had high chances of being repressed and low chances of achieving success. Why are people time and again prepared to participate in protests?

The project brings two lines of earlier research together: neuropolitical research and the BPA. Neuropolitical research aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying political information processing and decision making, focusing on specific brain regions that are involved in affective and evaluative processing such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the insular cortex and the amygdala (Haas et al., 2020; Jost et al., 2014). Jost et al.’s review study also shows that a more conservative political preference is positively associated with certain personality traits: resistance to change, negativity bias, authoritarianism, need for closure, sensitivity or fear of threats, anxiety, and conscientiousness. It is negatively associated with openness to new experiences, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. Several of these variables have also been studied in the BPA studies and proven to be related to citizens’ opinions and satisfaction with public service delivery (cf. references above). Therefore, we aim to explore whether there is also a direct or indirect effect of personality traits and cognitive neural correlates on citizens’ knowledge, preferences and expectations of public service delivery.

De hamvraag van dit artikel is hoe enerzijds destructieve polarisatie in te perkenen anderzijds constructieve polarisatie te faciliteren? In termen vanverwachtingenmanagement, dit artikel beschrijft geen kant-en-klare antwoorden,die zijn niet direct voor handen bij dit wicked problem. Wel zal ik toelichten wat onder polarisatie verstaan wordt enwelke vormen van polarisatie beschreven worden in de literatuur, waarbijrespectievelijk aandacht voor: ideologische versus affectieve polarisatie,constructieve versus destructieve polarisatie, en horizontale versus verticalepolarisatie. Vervolgens is er aandacht voor wantrouwen en onzekerheid alszuurstof voor polarisatie en de inzet van polarisatie bij politieke mobilisatieen identiteitspolitiek. In de conclusie kom ik terug op de hamvraag hoedestructieve polarisatie in te perken en constructieve polarisatie tefaciliteren.

Politicization of identities is key to the dynamics of contention. Protest movements are built on politicized identities and they are populated by people with politicized identities. Politicization of identities is simultaneously a characteristic of collectivities and people. There exists a division of labor between students of politicization of identities. Sociologists tend to study politicization at the collective level on the supply side of contentious politics, while social psychologists typically focus on the individual level of politicization at the demand side of politics. The politicization of the supply side of protest refers to the characteristics of protest movements. Is it a movement people can identify with? Is a movement able to frame personal problems into political claims? The politicization of demand refers to the potential of protestors in a society. It relates to the problems people perceive in a society and whether people attach political meaning to these problems. In order to understand how the division of labor conceptually and empirically affects the study of this phenomenon, this entry elaborates on the concept of identity.

Social psychological research has taught us a lot about why people protest. This entry provides a theoretical and empirical overview, and discusses grievances, efficacy, identification, emotions, and social embeddedness. We close the entry by highlighting a few contemporary approaches, on protests regarding consensual rather than conflictual issues, in repressive contexts, and the social psychological effects of protest participation.

This chapter presents a social-psychological account of political participation. The framework connects the micro-, meso-, and macro-level and separates demand, supply, and mobilization as factors influencing the dynamics of protest participation. Understanding political participation requires research that focuses on the individual citizens—what are their fears, hopes, and concerns? What are the issues they care for? What are the motives they have? What opportunities do they perceive? Research of protest participation tends to neglect that even in identical circumstances individuals diverge widely in the ways they act politically. A proper understanding of that variation requires a framework that integrates the micro-, meso-, and macro-level of analysis. Such integration is frequently asked for but sparsely done.

From the 1980s onward movement scholars have increasingly emphasized the significance of collective identity as a factor stimulating protest participation. Sociologists were among the first to emphasize the importance of collective identity in protest participation. They argued that the generation of a collective identity is crucial for a movement to emerge. Similarly, social psychological studies report consistently that the more people identify with a group the more they are inclined to protest on behalf of that group. Apparently, identification with a group is an important reason why people participate in protest on behalf of that group. In order to understand why, we must elaborate the identity concept.

One recurrent theme that has animated protest movements over the past decade is increasing social inequality. Take the Occupy Wall Street movement, were Occupiers’ key grievance was stark inequality. These early 2010s protests have led some even to conceive it as a new global movement phenomenon. Others maintain that demonstrations those days mainly displayed characteristics typically associated with ‘old’ social movements. We argue that in order to understand differences between these movements, we should compare occupy-protests to anti-austerity protests in the same period. After all, both types of demonstrations protested against the stark inequality following the financial melt-down in precisely the same period. To do so, we rely on data from the Caught in the Act of Protest Study, which caught protesters in their act of protest. Hence, data were collected at the demonstrations themselves. We selected occupy-protests and anti-austerity protests covered between 2009 and 2012. The questions posed to the demonstrators related to socio-demographics (the who of protest), motivational dynamics (the why of protest) and mobilization dynamics (the how of protest). We found that clearly the two types of demonstrations bring different crowds into the streets. Occupy-protesters were younger, higher educated and much less involved in formal organizations compared to ant-austerity demonstrators, and Occupiers were more dissatisfied with democracy. Finally, we discuss these findings against contemporary anti-inequality mobilization. We argue that political entrepreneurs on the (populist) left and/or the right will politicize current inequality-related grievances and mobilize people for the streets and/or the voting booth.

Objective To assess the availability of an institutional-level respectful maternity care (RMC) index, its components, and associated factors.Methods A cross-sectional study design was applied to a 2016 census of 3804 health facilities in Ethiopia. The availability of an institutional-level RMC index was computed as the availability of all nine items identified as important aspects of institutional-level RMC during childbirth. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with availability of the index.Results Three components of the institutional-level RMC index were identified: "RMC policy," "RMC experience," and "facility for provision of RMC." Overall, 28% of facilities (hospitals, 29.9%; health centers, 27.8%) reported availability of the institutional-level RMC index. Facility location urbanization (urban region), percentage of maternal and newborn health workers trained in basic emergency obstetric and newborn care, and availability of maternity waiting homes in health facilities were positively associated with availability of the institutional-level RMC index.Conclusion Only one in three facilities reported availability of the institutional-level RMC index. The Ethiopian government should consider strengthening support mechanisms in different administrative regions (urban, pastoralist, and agrarian), implementing the provision training for health workers that incorporates RMC components, and increasing the availability of maternity waiting homes.

With postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) continuing to be the leading cause of maternal mortality in most low-resource settings, an audit of the quality of care in health facilities is essential. The purpose of this study was to identify areas of substandard care and establish recommendations for the management of PPH in Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital, eastern Ethiopia. Using standard criteria (n = 8) adapted to the local hospital setting, we audited 45 women with PPH admitted from August 2018 to March 2019. Four criteria were agreed as being low: IV line-setup (32 women, 71.1%), accurate postpartum vital sign monitoring (23 women, 51.1%), performing typing and cross-matching (22 women, 48.9%), and fluid intake/output chart maintenance (6 women, 13.3%). In only 3 out of 45 women (6.7%), all eight standard criteria were met. Deficiencies in the case of note documentation and clinical monitoring, non-availability of medical resources and blood for transfusion, as well as delays in clinical management were identified. The audit created awareness, resulting in self-reflection of current practice and promoted a sense of responsibility to improve care among hospital staff. Locally appropriate recommendations and an intervention plan based on available resources were formulated.

The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in March 2019. Through a school strike, a new generation has been galvanized, representing a historical turn in climate activism. This wave of climate protest mobilization is unique in its tactics, global scope and appeal to teenage school students. Media coverage of these protests and high-level national and international political meetings involving the movement’s icon, Greta Thunberg, illustrate a level of global attention that no previous youth movement has ever received. A team of social scientists from universities across Europe1 organized a survey of the global FFF strike events on March 15. The team surveyed protesters in 13 cities in nine European countries using the same research design to collect data, following the well-established protest survey methodology used previously in the “Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation” (CCC) project.

Studies of the participants in "Fridays For Future" climate protests on 15 March, 2019 in 13 European cities.

Sometimes it feels you can predict the issue of the demonstration by the looks of it. Sharing a structural position in society aligns fears, hopes and dreams. When collective demands politicize and structural groups organize institutionally as such, a metaphorical cleavage of social inequalities emerges. Demonstrations are always based on either side of such a cleavage. Crowds will align to the cleavage in which the protest event roots in terms of social class, political values and organizational embeddedness. When comparing the crowd-cleavage alignment within street demonstrations in four European countries, we argue that the cleavage structure in a country in turn influences this process of alignment. Cleavages can be salient or pacified. In countries with a salient class cleavage, there remains less space for other cleavages. In these contexts demonstrations attracts their own specific target groups, which leads to a selective protest crowd. Contrary, in countries with a pacified class cleavage, there is enough space for other cleavage issues. In this context, social movement organizations use broad mobilizing frames in order to speak to an encompassing mobilization potential. This leads to diverse crowds in demonstrations. As a result, in a pacified context there is less alignment between issue and crowd.

Every day, somewhere in the world, citizens take to the streets to vent their anger about grievances they share. A central mechanism in our understanding of protest behavior is identity formation. To experience shared grievances and emotions, a shared identity must develop. We address the question with whom protesters identify. Rather than examine whether dynamics of identification determine mobilization and participation, we will assess whether dynamics of mobilization and participation foster identification. We distinguish deductive and inductive identity formation. Taking the deductive route, people deduce a shared identity from a higher-order category membership they share; for example, being a union member. Taking the inductive route, a collective identity emerges as group members interact. Hypotheses derived from this conceptualization are tested. We present data on identification from a study of 81 demonstrations and 16,597 participants in eight European countries. We find that inductive and deductive identity formation have different antecedents.

Sometimes it feels you can predict the issue of the demonstration by the looks of it. Sharing a structural position in society aligns fears, hopes and dreams. When collective demands politicize and structural groups organize institutionally as such, a metaphorical cleavage of social inequalities emerges. Demonstrations are always based on either side of such a cleavage. Crowds will align to the cleavage in which the protest event roots in terms of social class, political values and organizational embeddedness. When comparing the crowd-cleavage alignment within street demonstrations in four European countries, we argue that the cleavage structure in a country in turn influences this process of alignment. Cleavages can be salient or pacified. In countries with a salient class cleavage, there remains less space for other cleavages. In these contexts demonstrations attracts their own specific target groups, which leads to a selective protest crowd. Contrary, in countries with a pacified class cleavage, there is enough space for other cleavage issues. In this context, social movement organizations use broad mobilizing frames in order to speak to an encompassing mobilization potential. This leads to diverse crowds in demonstrations. As a result, in a pacified context there is less alignment between issue and crowd.

This qualitative study focuses on how Dutch military personnel cope with work-related discontent. In 24 interviews with personnel from four major branches of the Dutch armed forces we discussed their positive and negative experiences, the strategies they apply to cope with discontent and the restrictions they face when doing so, the role of the trade unions, the possibility of exit and finally loyalty and pride related to their work. Our results show that while military personnel value their jobs highly, they also feel pressured by the organizational changes which have both material and immaterial consequences. Collective protest to such developments remains elusive, due to the restrictions present in the organization – in particular hierarchy, feelings of loyalty, the feelings of helplessness and the threat of repercussions. Individual strategies of coping seem dominant – whether that is individual voice supported by the collectivity of trade union or leaving the organization altogether.