Understanding political behaviour: from social hierarchy to social categorisation

Since its inception as a discipline, political psychology was concerned with developing psychological (and societal) models for understanding political behaviour. From the early and classic writings to modern approaches, political psychology has developed, promoted and transformed its theories to describe how societies are socially and politically organised. This chapter outlines the relationship between social categorisation and social mobilisation, as well as that between collective identities and collective action. It argues that by exploring the link that social and political actors institute between identities and social action, one can gain a better grasp of political behaviour as a complex form of social practice. Using examples from various social settings and contexts, this chapter shows how identities are constructed (reconstructed) in the context of social practices and are created to manage social situations and organise (collective) social action.

The increased desire for social recognition, authenticity, social change, identity affirmation and choice requires a dynamic social psychological understanding of these processes. The chapter offers a commentary on the cross-sectional nature of identity, the multiplicity of social identifications and positions in response to, or as an effect of, social categorisation. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of the need to place the notion of identity at the centre of political psychology’s theoretical and empirical language.