When Society Deteriorates: Political Intolerance, Perceived Anomic Threat and Participation in Anti-system Collective Actions in the Context of Authoritarian Democracy

Abstract

The literature reports that individuals living in repressive environments tend to avoid participating in collective actions, in particular because of the risks of confrontation with intimidation, arbitrary arrests, violence, and even death. However, some researches has begun to document the psychosocial mechanisms that could motivate them to overcome these risks: feeling of outrage generated by state repression, identification with civil society and moral obligation to resist, for example. The present study, conducted in the context of authoritarian democracy, is situated in this line of research by proposing anomic threat, considered as the perceived disintegration and deregulation of society, as an incentive variable of the propensity to protest against the system in a repressive environment. It suggests that when individuals perceive the degradation of society from the points of view of its leadership and values, they may realize that inaction is likely to accentuate it and may be inclined to participate in collective actions with a view to restore the fractured social structure and leadership, despite the risks of repression from the governing system. In this logic, the hypothesis tested predicts that perceived anomic threat reinforces the relationship between perceived political intolerance and participation in anti-system collective actions in the context of authoritarian democracy. 275 Cameroonians, aged between 17 and 47 years (M. = 24.24; S.D. = 5.71) agreed to participate in the research. Measures focused on perceived political intolerance, perceived anomic threat, perceived efficacy of collective actions, participation in anti-system collective actions, distrust and grievances towards political authority. The results show that when participants are experimentally confronted with the degrading character of society, their perception of anomic threat reinforces the relationship between political intolerance and participation in anti-system collective actions, due to the activation of negative emotions and the perceived efficacy of the said actions. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.