IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v51y2007i5p744-771.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identity, Power, and Threat Perception

Author

Listed:
  • David L. Rousseau

    (Department of Political Science University at Albany (SUNY), New York)

  • Rocio Garcia-Retamero

    (Facultad de Psicologia Universidad de Granada, Spain)

Abstract

Realists in international relations and realistic conflict theorists in social psychology argue that the perception of threat in intergroup conflict is a function of power asymmetries between groups. In contrast, social constructivists and social identity theorists argue that a shared sense of identity can reduce perceptions of intergroup threat. In this article, we test these competing arguments using three laboratory experiments conducted in two different countries (Spain and the United States). Four findings emerge from the experiments: (1) a weak position in terms of military power increases threat perception, as realists predict; (2) shared identity decreases threat perception, as constructivists predict; (3) an interactive relationship between power and identity appears in two of the three studies; and (4) shared identity increases cooperation in economic policy areas.

Suggested Citation

  • David L. Rousseau & Rocio Garcia-Retamero, 2007. "Identity, Power, and Threat Perception," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(5), pages 744-771, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:5:p:744-771
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002707304813
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002707304813
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002707304813?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grieco, Joseph M., 1988. "Anarchy and the limits of cooperation: a realist critique of the newest liberal institutionalism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 485-507, July.
    2. Tomz, Michael & Wittenberg, Jason & King, Gary, 2003. "Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i01).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zlatko Å ram, 2016. "The Effects of Political Cynicism and National Siege Mentality on the Internalization of an Anti-European Sentiment," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 6(1), pages 22-31, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy M Peterson, 2011. "Third-party trade, political similarity, and dyadic conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(2), pages 185-200, March.
    2. Hanne Fjelde & Desirée Nilsson, 2018. "The rise of rebel contenders," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 551-565, September.
    3. Christoph Schwierz & Boris Augurzky & Axel Focke & Jürgen Wasem, 2012. "Demand, selection and patient outcomes in German acute care hospitals," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 209-221, March.
    4. Nathan Jensen, 2007. "International institutions and market expectations: Stock price responses to the WTO ruling on the 2002 U.S. steel tariffs," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 261-280, September.
    5. Anzia, Sarah F. & Moe, Terry M., 2015. "Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public Sector Labor Laws," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt83h8q7v1, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    6. Clemens Noelke & Daniel Horn, 2011. "Social Transformation and the Transition from Vocational Education to Work," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1105, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    7. Nil Demet Gungor & Aysıt Tansel, 2008. "Brain drain from Turkey: an investigation of students' return intentions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(23), pages 3069-3087.
    8. Kai Jäger, 2013. "Sources of Franco-German corporate support for the euro: The effects of business network centrality and political connections," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 115-139, March.
    9. Kaplan Yilmaz, 2017. "China’s OBOR as a Geo-Functional Institutionalist Project," TalTech Journal of European Studies, Sciendo, vol. 7(1), pages 7-23, June.
    10. Kai Jäger, 2017. "Studies on Issues in Political Economy since the Global Financial Crisis," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 71.
    11. Jensen, Nathan M. & Li, Quan & Rahman, Aminur, 2007. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter : understanding corruption using cross-national firm-level surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4413, The World Bank.
    12. Jennifer Oser, 2017. "Assessing How Participators Combine Acts in Their “Political Tool Kits”: A Person-Centered Measurement Approach for Analyzing Citizen Participation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 235-258, August.
    13. Robert Grafstein, 2009. "Antisocial Security: The Puzzle of Beggar‐Thy‐Children Policies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 710-725, July.
    14. Jo Jakobsen & Indra De Soysa, 2006. "Do Foreign Investors Punish Democracy? Theory and Empirics, 1984–2001," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 383-410, August.
    15. P. See Lim & Colleen Barry‐Goodman & David Branham, 2006. "Discrimination that Travels: How Ethnicity Affects Party Identification for Southeast Asian Immigrants," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1158-1170, December.
    16. Michal Kolmas, 2016. "China’s Approach to Regional Cooperation," China Report, , vol. 52(3), pages 192-210, August.
    17. Kehrberg Jason, 2020. "Authoritarianism, Prejudice, and Support for Welfare Chauvinism in the United States," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 195-212, December.
    18. Ostby, Gudrun, 2007. "Horizontal inequalities, political environment, and civil conflict : evidence from 55 developing countries, 1986-2003," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4193, The World Bank.
    19. Alan De Bromhead & Karol Jan Borowiecki, 2016. "Immigration and the demand for life insurance: evidence from Canada, 1911," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(2), pages 147-175.
    20. Lee, Taeku & Oliver, J. Eric, 2002. "Public Opinion and the Politics of America's Obesity Epidemic," Working Paper Series rwp02-017, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:51:y:2007:i:5:p:744-771. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.