Votes Without Power:Procedural Justice as Mutual Control in Majority‐Minority Relations1

• Published in: Journal of applied social psychology Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 124 - 155
• Main Authors: AZZI, Assaad E., Jost, John T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.1997; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• ISSN: 0021-9029; 1559-1816
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00626.x

In an application of procedural justice theory (Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1989) to the domain of intergroup relations, we investigated justice preferences among members of numerical majority and minority groups as a function of two parameters: the number of representatives allotted to each group, and the decision rule used to determine the outcome (ranging from simple majority vote to unanimity). In the first study, minority group members perceived the combination of proportional representation and majority vote to be significantly less fair than all other combinations, and their choices of procedure stressed “mutual control” (when the decision rule exceeds the number of representatives possessed by either group). In a second study, majority group members perceived the combination of equal representation and majority vote to be significantly less fair than other procedures, but their choices of procedure did involve a considerable degree of mutual control. These findings suggest that there may be some basis for agreement between majority and minority group members' justice preferences and that both groups may perceive situations of mutual control to be acceptable. A third study involving both majority and minority group members ruled out an interpretation of the previous results in terms of motivation to maintain vs. change the status quo.