Original scientific paper

Reputation Maximization: Toward a Micro Theory of Ethnic Solidarity

Aleksandar Štulhofer orcid.org/0000-0001-5138-3644 ; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

This paper develops a micro-to-macro model of ethnic solidarity, a synthesis of three approaches: the primordial, the instrumental, and the constructivist. Taking the process of identification as the starting point, the author argues that reputation maximisation − a co-operation securing mechanism − should be viewed as an evolutionary addition to the rational choice approach to ethnicity. Further elaboration of reputation maximisation hypothesis and the process of ethnic identification provides an explanation of ethnic solidarity, pointing out the importance of reputational inertia binding actors to their reputational networks. The paper offers some empirical argumentation of the above theses.

Keywords

ethnicity; rationality; evolution of co-operation; identity; reputation maximisation; reputational network; reputational inertia; ethnic solidarity

Hrčak ID:

126885

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/126885

Publication date:

31.12.1996.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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