From Moderate Action to Radical Protest Intentions: Disentangling Social-Identity-Based Models Predicting Political Violence

We examine how anti-Trump democrats (N = 460), prior to the 2020 election, managed their options to protest, focusing on when moderate collective action predicts more radical intentions to protest. We investigate the relationship of moderate action involvement and effectiveness with radical action intentions and the effects of various other variables such as intergroup emotions, group identification, and political vs. participative efficacy. Although moderate action involvement is correlated with radical intentions, the effectiveness of moderate action is negatively related to radical intentions. Analogously, while political efficacy positively predicts radical action, participative efficacy negatively predicts radical action, both with increasing moderate action experience. Social-identity-based collective action models explain this radical use of political violence as protest (e.g., ESIM) and the counteracting effect of efficacy forms (SIDE, NTL).