Are Participants in Ethnonationalist Movements Rational-Choosers, Socially-Embedded Actors, or Psychologically-Instinctive Beings?: Motivations and Worldviews of Sikh Separatists from India

This article contributes to answering the fundamental research question, “Why do individuals participate in contentious ethnonationalist movements?” More specifically, it tries to ascertain which competing theory of human behavior—rational-chooser, socially-embedded actor, or instinctive psychological being—best explains this phenomenon. Based on over a dozen in-depth interviews with Sikh ethnonationalists from Punjab-India, this paper finds that social constructivism, and to a much lesser extent, the sociopsychological paradigm best explain why individuals join collective ethnonationalist movements. In contrast, the rational-choice theory finds only very limited support. Even when sociopsychological and rational-choice motivations are found for individual participation in risky ethnonationalist movements, they exist either intertwined or in close conjunction with social constructivist ones, thus giving even increased support for this dominant theory.