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Dissent is a common feature of intragroup relations. The consequences of dissent, positive or negative, depend largely on group reactions to dissenters. The current study examined whether geographical distance as well as social dominance orientation (SDO) influence group responses toward a dissenter. I hypothesized that geographical distance would exacerbate negative reactions toward a group member who dissent from—rather than conform to—group norms. Further, I predicted levels of social dominance orientation would moderate group reactions. Findings were not consistent with our predictions; however, the current results did elucidate several interesting lines of future research. Specifically, the findings from the current study reveal that people were more likely to attribute blame to and perceive more harm done to the ingroup by a distal group member, regardless of whether he dissented or not. Further, those high in SDO, relative to low in SDO, were more likely to reprimand and perceive more harm done to the ingroup by a non-dissenting member when he was faraway compared to nearby. These results suggest that geographical distance, as well as individual differences, such as SDO, is important, albeit complex, factors in group reactions to dissenters. / text

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In an age of Revolution, when the rights of the individual were being fought for, Anna Letitia Barbauld was at the centre of the ideological debate. This thesis focuses on her political writing; it argues that she was more radical than previously thought. It provides new evidence of Barbauld’s close connection to an international network of reformers. Motivated by her Dissenting faith, her poems suggest that she made topical interventions which linked humanitarian concerns to wider abuses of power. This thesis traces Barbauld’s intellectual connections to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century religious and political thought. It examines her dialogues with the leading thinkers of her era, in particular Joseph Priestley. Setting her political writing in the context of the 1790s pamphlet wars, I argue that it is surprising that her 1792 pamphlet, Civic Sermons, escaped prosecution; its criticism of the government has similarities to the ideas of writers who were tried. My analysis of Barbauld’s political and socio-economic ideas suggests that, unlike many of her contemporaries, she trusted ordinary people, believing that they had a right to be involved in government. She argued that intellectuals should provide them with information but not tell them what to think. These democratic ideas were reflected in her literary approach; she employed different genres to reach different audiences. She critiqued and used the discourses of enthusiasm and sensibility to appeal to the emotions of her readers. I argue that, by adapting the traditionally male genre of political pamphlets, her work was part of a tradition of progressive female political thought dating back to the seventeenth century. Her innovative defence of civil liberties contributed to the development of liberalism.

This dissertation examines the significance of the politics of classification to how we have come to understand and study practices of protest and dissent. I trace the politics of classification in the history of political thought, and highlight how the categories of thought often most deeply associated with the promises of the Euro-modern Enlightenment constitute both aspirations and limits to questions of dissent and political transformation. These modern aspirations and limits, I argue, have tended to fall into one of two traditions – a Kantian/Foucauldian tradition and a Hegelian/Marxian tradition. While the Hegelian/Marxian tradition involves a specific, progressivist theory of the subject, lines of thought associated with this tradition tend to be reductionist. By contrast, the Kantian/Foucauldian tradition is not reductionist in the same way as the Hegelian/Marxian, and involves both an ontological and an epistemological theory of classification, but is constrained by its own constitutive limits. I apply these theoretical insights to a study of how a range of sympathetic, progressivist commentators – from journalists, to activists, to academics – have attempted to explain the 2009-2013 wave of global protests. Examining commentaries that discuss and link events ranging from the Syntagma Square and indignadas protests in Greece and Spain, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the summer 2013 protests in Brazil, Turkey and Bulgaria, I show that these commentaries claim novel politics but ignore the politics of classification within which their own work operates. This lack of attention paid to the politics of classification by both participants and commentators in progressive politics is symptomatic of a hegemony of the particular classificatory practices and categories I have identified. I suggest that explanations of protests often clustered around three key issues – or three ways that commentators claimed something was changing – claims to novelty, claims to the emergence of new forms of subjectivity, and claims around changing structures of authority. To take seriously the question of dissent, I conclude that we must take into account the epistemological inheritances within which our claims about practices of dissent are located. / Graduate / 2020-08-20

This dissertation examines the types of messages used for organizational dissent, and argues for connections between dissent messages, choice of audience and influence goals. The organizational dissent literature has explored the situations that may trigger dissent and the variables that lead a dissenter to approach various audiences, but few studies have examined dissent messages. Additionally, this line of research has tended to neglect coworkers as a possible audience for dissent and has been characterized as atheoretical (Waldron, 1999). Much of the research on interpersonal influence has examined influence in romantic relationships, but influence may play an important role in workplace relationships as well, suggesting that interpersonal influence is an appropriate theoretical perspective from which to examine dissent. This dissertation examines the messages, audiences, and goals associated with dissent using a two-part study with interviews and surveys. Messages differed according to audience, but, surprisingly, not according to the quality of relationship between the dissenter and the audience. Dissent expressed to supervisors is more likely to involve message types such as assertiveness, rational arguments, solution presentation, humor, ingratiation, sanctions, threatening resignation, while dissent expressed to coworkers is more likely to involve message types such as displaying emotion or coalitions. The primary goal of expressing emotion and the secondary goal of identity were most prevalent in terms of considerations as study participants expressed dissent. The analyses indicate that the goal of expressing emotion was significantly related to messages of displaying emotion, goals of providing guidance or changing opinion were significantly more associated with solution presentation than with asking for information, the goal of gaining assistance was significantly more associated with coalitions, and the goal of relational resource was significantly less associated with messages threatening resignation. These results suggest that interpersonal influence offers a fruitful perspective from which to view dissent messages, and more research is needed to examine the goals associated with workplace influence as the goals that motivate interpersonal interactions differ from the goals that motivate organizational dissent. Additionally, these results indicate that the position of a person is more important than a relationship in determining how a person will express dissent.

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Although political dissent is an idea that perennially receives much public attention, its standing in the academic literature is relatively slight. Very few thinkers engage the idea of dissent outside of its manifestation as an illegal action, and ever fewer dedicate any time to understanding the idea conceptually. A substantial portion of my dissertation aims to address this conspicuous gap. In the remaining portion, I advance a normative claim. My claim is that the very same justificatory considerations that pertain to illegal acts of dissent pertain as well to those acts that ought to be legally protected by a citizen’s right to dissent. Put more simply, I argue that whether or not a dissenting action is done within, or outside of, the law is of no normative effect. The upshot of this argument is that it places the burden on agents to be responsible for all the dissenting actions they undertake. This is so regardless of whether or not those actions find institutional shelter. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)