Klandermans, van der Toorn, & van Stekelenburg (2008). Embeddedness and Identity: How immigrants turn grievances into action. - Article summary

The risk of collective action is polarization between groups. Muslim immigrants are expected to assimilate in the host culture which makes it more difficult to use collective action. Social embeddedness might provide individuals with the resources needed to invest in collective action.

Grievances refer to a sense of indignation about the way authorities are treating a social or political problem. The general assumption of collective action is that people engage in collective action as a response to being aggrieved.

The relative deprivation theory states that feelings of relative deprivation result from a comparison of one’s situation with a certain standard. There is a distinction between individual relative deprivation and group relative deprivation and group relative deprivation is important for engagement in collective action.

Distributed justice refers to the fairness of outcome distributions. Procedural justice refers to the fairness of decision-making procedures and the relational aspects of the social process. Procedural justice appears to be more important.

It appears as if not everyone who is aggrieved engages in collective action while everyone who engages in collective action is aggrieved.

There are several factors that play a role in whether people who are aggrieved engage in collective action:

1. Efficacy (i.e. instrumental pathway)
   The availability of resources and the presence of opportunities might play a key role as groups with more resources and opportunities are more likely to succeed in mobilizing collective action. It also helps redress grievances at an affordable cost.
2. Identity (i.e. identity pathway)
   People engage in collective action to fulfil collective identity needs. The more a person identifies with a group, the more likely that person is to take part in collective action with that group.
3. Emotions
   Emotions can be approach or avoidance orientated. Emotion is related to efficacy. Fear is associated with feeling less efficacy and anger is associated with feeling more efficacy. Anger is an important stimulant of protest participation and emotions amplify already existing motivations.
4. Social embeddedness
   This can provide the resources necessary for opposition movements and collective action. Embeddedness in social networks seems to foster conventional and unconventional political participation.

Dual identity refers to the multiple identities a person can simultaneously have. The identification with a subordinate entity does not necessarily exclude the identification with a supraordinate entity. A dual identity (i.e. integration) might provide more satisfaction with one’s situation than other forms of cultural adaptation.

Assimilation (1), integration (2), separation (3) and marginalization (4) are four possible forms of cultural adaptation. Integration stimulates sub-group mobilization and thus some form of identification with a nation is needed to mobilize for political action.

It is possible that people learn how political institutions work by engaging in voluntary associations. Social capital consists of social networks and trust and loyalty.

Identification with exclusive categories is stronger than identification with inclusive categories. People with dual identities felt more satisfaction about the way the government treats people. Procedures perceived as unfair to the individual breeds anger while procedures perceived as unfair to the collective breeds fear. The perceived unfairness of outcomes breeds fear as well.

People with higher levels of education participated more frequently in collective action. Higher political cynicism lowers the likelihood that people will participate in collective action.

Individual efficacy is associated with social embeddedness and this is associated with participation in collective action. Political cynicism is associated with procedural unfairness and procedural unfairness is associated with participation in collective action. However, political cynicism by itself is negatively associated with participation in collective action.

Aggrieved immigrants participated in collective action provided that they displayed a dual identity and were imbedded in social networks. Immigrants who were cynical about politics tended to not participate in collective action unless they were aggrieved. Immigrants who felt more efficacious were more likely to participate in collective action provided that they were embedded in social networks.

Immigrants felt anger when discriminated against if they felt efficacious and fear if they did not feel efficacious. Immigrants who were angry were more likely to participate in collective action.

The social embeddedness cluster consists of feelings of efficacy and embeddedness in social networks. The grievance cluster consists of political cynicism, perceived unfairness and identity.

Cynicism reduces and reinforces action participation, depending on whether it is accompanied by perceived unfairness. Perceived unfairness particularly influences political participation among immigrants with a dual identity.