Divide and conquer? Identity, threat, and moral justification of violence at the G20

Abstract

Objective During the 2014 Brisbane G20 meeting, new police powers enabled segregation of protesters into specific protest alliances and groups. This study used this unique context to quantitatively test the Elaborated Social Identity Model of crowd behaviour (ESIM) with protesters in vivo. We did this by examining how protesters’ social identification (own protest group and protesters more broadly) predicted perceived police threat and moral justification of violence. Method Protesters completed survey measures of social identification, threat appraisals of police, and moral justification of violence. Results Mediation analyses revealed identification with superordinate group (protesters generally), but not own protest group, predicted justification of violence via threat appraisals. Conclusions This study presents survey data from protesters at G20. The findings support ESIM and highlight that protesters may appraise police as threatening and consider violence morally justified, even in the context of a generally well regarded and effective community‐based policing strategy.

Keywords

• collective action
• crowd behaviour
• g20
• protest
• social identity
• threat appraisal