Group relative deprivation and different forms of political actions: The role of the target outgroup

Abstract

Many contemporary researchers agree that group relative deprivation is a driver of political actions against outgroups. However, both relative deprivation and political actions are complex phenomena, making it important to further study this relationship in the context of other relevant variables. One such variable could be the specific outgroup. The purpose of our study was to evaluate differences in the contribution of group relative deprivation to the prediction of activist and radicalised intentions against two outgroups – Muslims and senior citizens. The multi-group structural equation modelling was applied separately on nationally representative samples of youth from Germany (N = 1,056), Norway (N = 376) and the United Kingdom (UK) (N = 1053). Group relative deprivation exhibited a robust relationship with activist intentions after controlling for general aggression, social desirability bias, age and gender, except in the UK, where the relationship between activist intentions and relative deprivation was stronger with Muslims as the target outgroup. The relationship between relative deprivation and radicalised intentions depended on the target outgroup across countries – it was related to radicalised intentions only against Muslims. The meaning and implications of these results are briefly discussed.