Two narratives of economic development are presented. The first highlights contemporary global wealth and income inequality. The second illustrates historical aggregate gains in global wealth and income. Within these two broad narratives of economic development, protests and social movements will arise to modulate feelings of unfairness and deprivation. A new theory of social movements is developed. Collective remembering and collective imagining can inform feelings of unfairness, frustration, and relative deprivation in the present. This theory highlights the importance of a temporal account of the development of social movements within democracies that allow for the expression of civic discontent without brutalization. The theory predicts aggregate global economic development, with unequal economic gains, will always necessitate social movements to modulate economic inequality and circumvent perceived and actual hardship. The implications of this theory for understanding globalization, social movements, and creating fairer democratic societies are discussed.
AliberR. Z.KindlebergerC. P. (2015). Manias, panics, and crashes: A history of financial crises (7th ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
2.
AtkinsonA. B. (2015). Inequality: What can be done?Harvard University Press.
3.
AwadS. H.WagonerB. (2018). Constructing symbols of inequality. Current Anthropology, 59(6), 774–775.
4.
BanfieldE. C. (1958). The moral basis of a backward society. The Free Press.
5.
BartlettF. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press.
6.
BloomP. (2012). Just babies: The origins of good and evil. Crown.
7.
BrescóI. (2009). Form and content of historical accounts: Studying the (re) construction of past events through different narratives and identitarian positionings. Psychology and Society, 2(2), 102–123.
ChinG.CulottaE. (2014). What the numbers tell us. Science, 344(6186), 818–821.
14.
ChuaA. (2004). World on fire: How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability. Anchor.
15.
CornishF. (2012). Collectives may protest: But how do authorities respond. In WagonerB.JenseE.OldmeadowJ. (Eds.), Culture and social change: Transforming society through the power of ideas (pp. 30–52). Information Age Publishers.
16.
CrosbyF. (1976). A model of egoistical relative deprivation. Psychological Review, 83(2), 85–113.
17.
CrucesG.Perez-TrugliaR.TetazM. (2013). Biased perceptions of income distribution and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment. Journal of Public Economics, 98, 100–112.
18.
CzaikaM.de HaasH. (2012). The role of internal and international relative deprivation in global migration. Oxford Developmental Studies, 40(4), 423–442.
19.
DavidaiS. (2018). Why do Americans believe in economic mobility? Economic inequality, external attributions of wealth and poverty, and the belief in economic mobility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 138–148.
20.
DavidaiS.GilovichT. (2015). Building a more mobile America—One income quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(1), 60–71.
21.
DaviesJ. C. (1962). Toward a theory of revolution. American Sociological Review, 27, 5–19.
22.
DaviesJ. C. (1971). When men revolt and why: A reader in political violence and revolution. The Free Press.
23.
DeCellesK.NortonM. (2017). Physical and situational inequality on airplanes predicts air rage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(20), 5588–5591.
24.
de Saint-LaurentC. (2018). Memory acts: A theory for the study of collective memory in everyday life. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 31(2), 148–162.
25.
de Saint-LaurentC.ObradovićS.CarriereK. R. (Eds.). (2018). Imagining collective futures: Perspectives from social, cultural and political psychology. Springer.
26.
de TocquevilleA. (1955). The Old regime and the French revolution. Harper and Brothers. (Original work published 1857)
27.
DorlingD. (2014). Inequality and the 1%. VersoBooks.
28.
DorlingD. (2018). Peak Inequality: Britain’s ticking time bomb. Policy Press.
29.
DruryJ.ReicherS. (2000). Collective action and psychological change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(4), 579–604.
HalbwachsM. (1992). On collective memory (L. A.Coser, Trans. & Ed.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1925)
40.
HammackP. (2011). Narrative and the politics of identity: The cultural psychology of Israeli and Palestinian youth. Oxford University Press.
41.
HarrisonL. E. (1985). Underdevelopment is a state of mind: The Latin American case. Madison Books.
42.
HarrisonL. E.HuntingtonS. P. (Eds.). (2000). Culture matters: How values shape human progress. Basic Books.
43.
HauserO. P.NortonM. I. (2017). (Mis) perceptions of inequality. Current Opinion in Psychology, 18, 21–25.
44.
HirstW.ManierD. (2008). Towards a psychology of collective memory. Memory, 16(3), 183–200.
45.
HonohanP. (2014). Ireland’s EU-IMF Programme: delivering what it said on the Tin. CESifo Forum, 15(2):3–7.
46.
HuppertE.CowellJ. M.ChengY.Contreras-IbáñezC.Gomez-SicardN.Gonzalez-GadeaM. L.. . . Malcolm-SmithS. (2019). The development of children’s preferences for equality and equity across 13 individualistic and collectivist cultures. Developmental Science, 22(2), Article e12729.
47.
JindraM. (2014). The dilemma of equality and diversity. Current Anthropology, 55, 316–334.
48.
JovchelovitchS. (2006). Knowledge in context: Representations, community and culture. Routledge.
49.
KrugmanP. (2013). End this depression now!W.W. Norton.
50.
KuziemkoI.BuellR.ReichT.NortonM. (2015). “Last-place aversion”: Evidence and redistributive implications. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1), 105–149.
51.
LandesD. S. (1999). The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor. W.W. Norton.
52.
LaurinK.GaucherD.KayA. (2013). Stability and the justification of social inequality. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43(4), 246–254.
53.
Le BonG. (1903/2002). The crowd: A study of the popular mind. Dover Publications.
54.
LewisP.NewburnT.TaylorM.McgillivrayC.GreenhillA.FraymanH.ProctorR. (2011). Reading the riots: Investigating England’s summer of disorder. Guardian Books.
55.
LindE. A.TylerT. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. Springer Science & Business Media.
56.
MärtsinM.WagonerB.AvelingE. L.KadianakiI.WhittakerL. (2011). Dialogicality in focus: Challenges to theory, method and application. Nova Science Publishers.
57.
MertonR. K. (1936). The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action. American Sociological Review, 1(6), 894–904.
58.
MoghaddamF. M. (2013). The psychology of dictatorship. American Psychological Association.
59.
MoghaddamF. M. (2016). The psychology of democracy. American Psychological Association.
60.
MoghaddamF. M. (2018). The globalization—Revolution paradox: No revolution in capitalist democracies. In WagonerB.MoghaddamFValsinerJ. (Eds.), From rage to revolution: Models of dramatic social change. Cambridge University Press.
61.
MoghaddamF. M.WarrenZ.Vance-ChengR. (2012). Change non-Westerners can believe in. In WagonerB.JensenE.OldmeadowJ. (Eds.), Social and cultural change: A psychological perspective (pp. 75–95). Information Age Publishing.
62.
MoscoviciS. (1986). The discovery of the masses. In GraumannC. F.MoscoviciS. (Eds.), Changing conceptions of crowd mind and behavior (pp. 5–25). Springer.
63.
NiehuesJ. (2014). Subjective perceptions of inequality and redistributive preferences: An international comparison [Discussion paper]. Cologne Institute for Economic Research.
64.
NortonM. I.ArielyD. (2011). Building a better America—One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 9–12.
PettigrewT. (2015). Samuel stouffer and relative deprivation. Social Psychology Quarterly, 78(1), 7–24.
68.
PettigrewT. (2016). In pursuit of three theories: Authoritarianism, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 1–21.
69.
PikettyT. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century (GoldhammerA., Trans.). Belknap Press.
70.
PikettyT.SaezE. (2014). Inequality in the long run. Science, 344(6186), 838–842.
71.
PinkerS. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined. Penguin.
72.
PinkerS. (2018). Enlightenment now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. Penguin.
73.
PopperK. R. (1966). The open society and its enemies. Princeton University Press.
74.
PowerS. A. (2015, June21). To understand the Eurozone crisis, consider culture. Chicago Booth Review, 65–65.
75.
PowerS. A. (2016). A violent past but a peaceful present: The cultural psychology of an Irish recession. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22(1), 60–66.
76.
PowerS. A. (2017). From the elites to the streets: The psychology of democracy and economic inequality [Doctoral dissertation]. The University of Chicago.
77.
PowerS. A. (2018). Economic inequality and the rise of civic discontent: Remembering and deprivation in the Republic of Ireland. In WagonerB.MoghaddamF.ValsinerJ. (Eds.), The psychology of radical social change: From rage to revolution (pp. 29–53). Cambridge University Press.
78.
PowerS. A. (2018a). The deprivation—Protest paradox: How the perception of unfair economic inequality leads to civic unrest. Current Anthropology, 59(6), 765–782.
79.
PowerS. A. (2018b). Actual democracy and a United Europe of States: A case study of Austerity and Protest in the Republic of Ireland. In WagonerB.BrescóI.GlaveanuV. (Eds.), The road to actualized democracy: A psychological perspective (pp. 147–164). Information Age Publishing.
80.
PowerS. A. (2018c). Remembering and imagining in human development: Fairness and social movements in Ireland. In de Saint-LaurentC.ObradovicS.CarriereK. (Eds.), Imagining collective futures: Perspectives from social, cultural and political psychology (pp. 221–235). Palgrave Macmillan.
PowerS. A.VelezG. (in press). The MOVE framework: Meanings, observations, viewpoints, and experiences in processes of social change. Review of General Psychology.
84.
PowerS. A.VelezG.QadafiA.TennantJ. (2018). The SAGE model of social psychological research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(3), 359–372.
85.
RavallionM. (2014). Income inequality in the developing world. Science, 344(6186), 851–855.
86.
ReicherS. D. (1984). The St. Pauls’ riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd action in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14(1), 1–21.
87.
ReicherS. D.StottC. (2011). Mad mobs and English men? Myths and realities of the 2011 riots. Constable & Robinson.
RoslingH.RönnlundA. R.RoslingO. (2018). Factfulness: Ten reasons we’re wrong about the world—And why things are better than you think. Flatiron Books.
90.
RuncimanW. G. (1966). Relative deprivation and social justice: A study of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England. University of California Press.
91.
SachsJ. (2005). The end of poverty (Vol. 59). Penguin.
92.
ScheidelW. (2017). The great leveller: Violence and the global history of inequality from the stone age to the present. Princeton University Press.
93.
ShariffA. F.WiwadD.AkninL. B. (2016). Income mobility breeds tolerance for income inequality: Cross-national and experimental evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(3), 373–380.
94.
ShultzinerD.GoldbergS. (2019). The stages of mass mobilization: Separate phenomena and distinct causal mechanisms. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 49(1), 2–23.
95.
ShwederR. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Harvard University Press.
96.
ShwederR. A. (2000). Moral maps, “first world” conceits and the new evangelists. In HarrisonL.HuntingtonS. (Eds.), Culture matters: Cultural values and human progress (pp 158–177). Basic Books.
97.
ShwederR. A. (2003). Why do men barbecue? Recipes for cultural psychology. Harvard University Press.
98.
ShwederR. A. (2017). The risky cartography of drawing moral maps: With special reference to economic inequality and sex selective abortion. In CassanitiJ.MenonU. (Eds.), Universalism without the uniformity: Explorations in mind and culture (pp. 280–305). University of Chicago Press.
99.
ShwederR. A.PowerS. A. (2013). Robust cultural pluralism: An interview with Professor Richard Shweder. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 9, 671–686.
100.
SmithA. (2000). The wealth of nations. The Modern Library. (Original work published 1776)
101.
SmithH. J.PettigrewT. F.PippinG. M.BialosiewiczS. (2012). Relative deprivation: A theoretical and meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(3), 203–232.
102.
StarmansC.SheskinM.BloomP. (2017). Why people prefer unequal societies. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 0082.
103.
StottC.ReicherS. (2011). Mad mobs and Englishmen? Myths and realities of the 2011 riots. Hachette.
104.
StoufferS. A.SuchmanE. A.DeVinneyL. C.StarS. A.WilliamsR. M.Jr. (1949). Studies in social psychology in World War II. Vol. 1: The American soldier: Adjustment during army life. Princeton University Press.
105.
ThalerR. H.TverskyA.KahnemanD.SchwartzA. (1997). The effect of myopia and loss aversion on risk taking: An experimental test. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), 647–661.
ThompsonE. P. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century. Past & Present, 50, 76–136.
108.
TverskyA.KahnemanD. (1991). Loss aversion in riskless choice: A reference dependence model. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(4), 1039–1061.
109.
TylerT. (2011). Procedural justice shapes evaluations of income inequality: Commentary on Norton & Ariely (2011). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 15–16.
110.
van GinnekenJ. (1992). Crowds, psychology, and politics, 1871-1899. Cambridge University Press.
111.
van ZomerenM.PostmesT.SpearsR. (2008). Toward an integrative social identity model of collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 504–535.
112.
VygotskyL. S. (1931). Imagination and creativity in the adolescent (HallM. J., Trans., & (RieberR. W.WollockJ. (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 5, pp. 151–166). Springer.
113.
WagonerB. (2017). The constructive mind: Bartlett’s psychology in reconstruction. Cambridge University Press.
114.
WagonerB.BrescóI. (2016). Conflict and memory: The past in the present. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22(1), 3–4.
115.
WagonerB.BrescóI.AwadS. H. (2017). Imagination as a psychological and social-cultural process. In WagonerB.de LunaI. B.AwadS. H. (Eds.), Psychology of imagination: History, theory and new research horizons. Information Age Publishing.
116.
WagonerB.MoghaddamF.ValsinerJ. (2018). From rage to revolution: Models of dramatic social change. Cambridge University Press.
117.
WalkerI.PettigrewT. (1984). Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique. British Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 301–310.
118.
WangQ. (2008). On the cultural constitution of collective memory. Memory, 16(3), 305–317.
119.
WarrenZ.PowerS. A. (2015). It’s contagious: Rethinking a metaphor dialogically. Culture & Psychology, 21(3), 359–379.
120.
WeberM. (2009). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (ParsonsT., Trans., CriticalNorton ed.). W.W.Norton. (Original work published 1905)
121.
WertschJ. (1997). Narrative tools of history and Identity. Culture & Psychology, 3(5), 5–20.
122.
WertschJ. (2008). The narrative organization of collective memory. Ethos, 36, 120–135.
ZittounT.CerchiaF. (2013). Imagination as expansion of experience. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 47(3), 305–324.
125.
ZittounT.GillespieA. (2015). Imagination in human and cultural development. Routledge.
126.
ZittounT.GillespieA. (2018). Imagining the collective future: A sociocultural perspective. In de Saint-LaurentC.ObradovićS.CarriereK. R. (Eds.), Imagining collective futures (pp. 15–37). Palgrave Macmillan.
