Psychology and Politics: A Social Identity Perspective

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Psychology and Politics: A Social Identity Perspective Ron Johnston

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University of Bristol Published online: 02 Sep 2014.

Click for updates To cite this article: Ron Johnston (2014) Psychology and Politics: A Social Identity Perspective, Representation, 50:3, 419-420, DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2014.953806 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2014.953806

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BOOK REVIEW

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Ispas, Alexa, Psychology and Politics: A Social Identity Perspective, Psychology Press, London and New York, 2013, 129pp.; ISBN 978 – 0– 415– 67770 – 7, £80 (hbk); ISBN 978 –0 –203 – 57159 – 0 (ebk). There have been many calls for greater interdisciplinarity across the social sciences in recent decades, to which many practitioners have paid lip service only. So a book with the title Psychology and Politics appears to be against the general trend, offering the insights of a discipline that studies why people behave as they do (psychology) to another, much of which focuses on behavioural outcomes (political science). It was thus an immense disappointment to read this (admittedly well-written) book, since it offers political scientists minimal insights from one component of social psychology—the social identity perspective associated with Henri Tajfel, John Turner and their many followers. Indeed, not one of its bibliography’s 150 items appeared in a political science journal, and the author has made no apparent attempt to appreciate what it is that political scientists study—there is no definition of politics, for example. Even more surprisingly (if that were possible) there isn’t a single reference to a paper that appeared in the journal Political Psychology, first published in 1979. What this brief book offers, therefore, is one social psychologist’s views on how social identity theory might be deployed in (a limited appreciation of) political studies, on the utility of a perspective that divides people into ‘us’ and ‘them’ for the study of ‘political conduct’. The first chapter bodes well, providing an excellent overview of social identity theory, its origins and main contributions. The other four chapters cover ‘The psychology of social influence’, ‘The psychology of crowd events’, ‘The psychology of political leadership’ and ‘The psychology of authoritarian regimes’. These are far from satisfactory. Each is dominated by discussions of key studies in social psychology—many based on small experimental studies with non-representative samples—that may have some relevance to political conduct, but are certainly not directly related to it. At the end each has a section on ‘Implications for politics’, comprising no more than two pages. These approach the banal in some cases: in the chapter on ‘crowd events’, for example, three implications are drawn suggesting that the author is writing more for those involved than for those studying political conduct—‘Authorities should be sensitive to crowd members’ social identity’, ‘Prospective group members should carefully consider the norms of the group’, and ‘How political movements should organize themselves’! There is no overall conclusion. Although some of the material in those latter chapters is of interest in itself, a great deal of it is not oriented towards the study of political conduct. The chapter on ‘authoritarian regimes’, for example, focuses almost entirely on two classic psychology studies—by Milgram that involved participants applying electric shocks to others and Zimbardo’s prison experiment—plus their critics. The main goal is to argue that the outcomes are best

Representation, 2014 Vol. 50, No. 3, 419– 420

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RON JOHNSTON

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interpreted through a social identity perspective: political conduct is no more than a closing by-product. The book’s positive aspects are more than outweighed by the negative, therefore. It offers very little to those students of politics who focus on social influence, crowd events, leadership, and authoritarianism, and nothing to those who investigate a wide range of other political behaviours for whom psychological insights could be (indeed in some cases are) very illuminating (voting is never mentioned in the chapter on social influence, for example). Online puffs for the book suggest that it will make a major contribution to ‘burgeoning courses in political psychology’ (http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Psychology-and-Politics-AlexaIspas-2013-Hardcover-/102909132) which can only lead to the conclusion that those courses are politically naive. And at £80 it is not worth recommending as a useful purchase for its overview of social identity theory. Ron Johnston # 2014 University of Bristol http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2014.953806