The Clash of Identity and Economic Behavior

This paper is a response to the recent implications of the economic crisis on social identity and social choice. We aim to explore the emerging forms of protest and their liaison with group identity, according to the current mutations of state’s economic policies. Firstly, our task is to examine what happens to group identity when faced with anxieties about the economic welfare in the circumstances of the prolonged economic crisis. Secondly, the following concepts are to be discussed: the interminglements between the economic difficulties encountered by individuals and their mobilization around the need for social security, the social identity thus constructed, and the protest seen as collective grievance. We will emphasize that the negative outcomes of the economic crisis and the recession that followed caused a complex configuration of social constructs, leading to social cohesion despite the existing differences, due to the perception of facing the same inequalities.