RID Blog

    Asamoah-Gyadu’s “Get on the Internet!" described the increasing use of the internet to increase different religious groups' outreach. The author mentions the different ways the internet is used to to either be interactive and evangelize visitors to the website or simply be used as an informative or news related site. Meier and Nicholson-Crotty’s “Gender, Representative Bureaucracy, and Law Enforcement: The Case of Sexual Assault” studies the impact of increasing number of women police officers effecting the number of rape and sexual assault cases that are reported. Women will relate and feel more comfortable with more female representation in a police department by sharing these values and emotions about the seriousness of rape.      This question to me can be more easily answered with the sexual assault research article. The collective identity and commonality in this literature is gender, without it police departments would lack representation fo...

       Francesca Polletta and James Jasper’s “Collective Identity and Social Movements” main focus was the large role that collective identity has on not only collective action, but outcomes and success of social movements. In trying to break down a broad and undefined term, they examined the impact of individuals identity in four ways during protests. By looking at how these actions and claims start, the mobilization and importance of sustaining participation, as well as activists' decisions and outcomes, we can see how much identity is related to collective action. They conclude that identity and collective action can be concstructed, reformed, or empowered due to the relation with the other.       When trying to answer the question of how individuals' actions affect collective action outcomes, I think it is important to look at how they defined collective identity. Having an emotional or moral connection with a certain category or institution i...

     Sarah Brown’s “Female Perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide” unpacks the gender narratives that can be seen throughout the world but highlighted in Rwandan society and their genocide. She asks questions about women being mobilized, their exercised agency and post perpetration to try and answer why females active role in this genocide was silent in the narrative. Through these gender assumptions many can not fathom how mothers or daughters could be a part of direct or indirect violence. However, Brown mentions many cases of female perpetrators through fear of the Interahamwe, coercion, or choice were a large part of the Rwandan genocide.       In the case of the Rwandan genocide, identity was solely based of your ethnic group. Conflict was between the Hutu and Tutsi women, gender was not a factor. As Brown mentioned, that loyalty to either group was much more significant than any feeling of sisterhood between Hutu or Tutsi women. Was this violence f...

     Bernstein’s “Celebration and Suppression” uncovers why minorities shift from focusing on differences with the majority to similarities. She claims that this strategy is based off of social movement organizations and the type of government and opposition the minority faces. She later classifies social movements and the different types of dimensions which helps the reader understand when and how these movements are deployed and placed. Including many examples, Bernstein shows how these movements can transform mainstream culture, as well as the values of legislators and bystanders.       When first thinking of the answer to this question, the larger and more dramatic social movements were being used as examples. However, Bernstein mentions that not every revolution or social change needs to be grand or profound to gain new recruits and momentum. This made me take a step back and think that the first and most important part of this strategic deploymen...

     Claasen’s,  “Group Entitlement, Anger and Participation in Intergroup Violence” focuses on why individuals from intergroups, as well as outside individuals, participate in conflicts with outgroups. He argues that the choice to participate stems from the emotion of intergroup anger which could lead to violence after conflict. This anger is triggered by comparing outgroups entitlements and endowments to the intergroup. These differences in what is to be accepted, and what is reality in terms of distribution of resources causes these conflicts and problems.      The first motivating factor to take action to me has to be focused on the target or group of interest chosen to have conflict with. I know there are some examples of intergroups who are in higher socioeconomic classes or social categories that attack or take action against a lower class. However, when I think of these conflicts these outgroups have too much of something or are too powerful, w...

     Cederman, Wimmer and Min’s “Why do ethnic groups rebel?” looks into and analyzes hypotheses and factors for ethnic groups that will increase mobilization and conflict. They look at and disprove past literature relating towards ethnonationalist conflict with the government leading to civil war. They also test their own hypotheses for relevance to see what type of power dynamics lead to the most conflict. Using this data they can conclude that having past conflicts, exclusion from national issues or having a lower GDP per capita increases this conflict significantly.       When trying to answer this question of what is politically relevant or important identity I think it is first helpful to look at Tilly’s model that was shown in the reading. This shows not only the importance of political relevance but also how different groups are challenging each other to be closer to the government and ultimately closer to power. Now to me this model is then ca...

     Kanchan Chandra in “What is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?” argues that ethnic groups are sets of identity categories where membership is determined by descent based attributes. Chandra is able to prove that characteristics like common culture, history or language do not define an individual’s identity or ethnic group. While Teri Caraway’s “Gendering Comparative Politics” looks at the consequences of choosing gender rather than women as self identification. This work proves how gender is still an unsettling topic in terms of democratization.       Ethnicity is a broad idea that can be segmented into many different categories and groups. Yet, Chandra argues that many of these numerous characteristics are not defining enough to identify an individual. I agree with her point that genetically passed down attributes have to be part of your identity. It gives every person the chance to have similar qualities in a group that shares common ancestry, ...

     Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper’s Beyond “identity” explains not only the uses of identity, but also how people perceive and facilitate a strong or weak perception of themselves or of others. By comparing characteristics or categories of practice to make sense of oneself or trying to analyze a group of individuals into one “nationality” or “group”, identity can take form in many ways. Beyond “identity” highlights the political action used for manipulating and persuading people’s ideas of identity along with the weaker conceptions of identification which can mold in multiple ways with a more fluid approach. This approach contrasts with other ideas that all ethnic or racial groups have an identity, this shows the true uncertainty surrounding the true definition of identity.      One part of the reading that resonated with me was when they began talking about how identity claims become more powerful and clearer when there is an institutional weaknes...