political alliances
Definition
Political alliances refers to cross-group coalitions formed among marginalized communities with the shared goal of challenging societal injustice and resisting anti-democratic or ethno-nationalist movements. These alliances depend on expectations of stigma-based solidarity, the assumption that groups facing societal marginalization will act in cooperative and supportive ways toward one another. When those expectations are violated, as when members of historically allied marginalized groups cast votes contrary to coalition interests, feelings of betrayal emerge and trust in the betraying group declines. Such betrayal responses have downstream consequences for solidarity intentions, with reduced willingness to engage in collective action on behalf of the group perceived to have defected.
Sources: Shackleford et al. (2026)
Related Terms
- intergroup relations (1 shared article)
- stigma-based solidarity (1 shared article)
- intergroup betrayal (1 shared article)
- collective resistance (1 shared article)
Applications
Political Alliances and Stigma-based Solidarity Betrayal
The fragility of cross-group political alliances is directly tied to violations of stigma-based solidarity expectations. When members of marginalized groups act against the perceived interests of allied groups, as Arab American and Latino voters were perceived to do by supporting Trump rather than Harris, the resulting betrayal correlates with lower trust and reduced future solidarity intentions toward the defecting group. Black women Harris voters, for instance, showed greater betrayal toward Latino men than toward White men, a pattern explained by stronger prior expectations of cross-marginalization solidarity rather than by relational ties alone.
Sources: Shackleford et al. (2026)
Political Alliances and Ethno-nationalism
Cross-group political alliances among stigmatized communities have been identified as a primary mechanism for resisting the rise of ethno-nationalist, autocratic governance. The 2024 U.S. presidential election context illustrated how the perceived disintegration of such coalitions, through defections by Arab American and Latino voters from a Democratic coalition, raised concerns about the viability of solidarity-based resistance to anti-democratic sentiment. Betrayal responses prompted by those defections risk further eroding the cooperative ties that make collective resistance possible.
Sources: Shackleford et al. (2026)
