Category:Conformity

The entries in this chapter all deal with informal practices of regulation that derive their authority from the perception of shared membership in a group. The perception of shared identity plays a highly visible role in most popular understandings of group, political and institutional behaviour. The encouragement of perceptions of belonging, through practices and rituals related to their reinforcement, functions both as a source of norms and, in some instances, as a source of power under conditions of social or political subjection.