Abstract
Several studies have noted a surge in political dissatisfaction but there is no agreement on the consequences for democracy. This disagreement is often treated as a question of degree of dissatisfaction but can also suggest the existence of different kinds of political dissatisfaction. This article therefore examines the existence of difference kinds of political dissatisfaction and the link to protest participation, since this is frequently tied to political dissatisfaction. The data used comes from the fourth round of the European Social Survey from 2008 and includes 25 democratic European countries and with 47489 respondents. The results suggest the existence of three distinct and discrete types of political disatisfaction. Only one of these is linked to protest, a behaviour frequently performed by satisifed citizens. These results show the potential of treating political dissatisfaction as a problem of kind rather than degree.
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Notes
For example, both Norris (2011) and Dalton (2004) disregard indicators related to the citizen subjective sense of empowerment in their work.
Previous studies have constructed typologies based on central variables of interest (Geissel, 2008; Webb, 2013), but these have been based on single countries and it is therefore unclear whether they are useful in comparative research.
Webb (2013) considers stealth citizens as both unsupportive and disinterested. In the present typology, stealth citizens believe that the system works and therefore prefer to leave politics to the politicians, which is in line with the ideal type in Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002).
It is often difficult to settle the causal relationship between political participation and attitudes (Pateman, 1970; Verba et al, 1995). Although this problem has to be acknowledged, the central question here is the link between attitudes and behaviour rather than the direction of causality. Protest is also sometimes used as an indicator of political dissatisfaction (Hay, 2007), but political dissatisfaction is here considered an attitudinal concept that may cause different behaviours, such as protest, but this link should not be taken for granted.
The groups of citizens could of course also engage in political activities other than protest. For example, both satisfied and disempowered citizens may be more likely to vote and engage in institutionalized political activities considering their satisfaction with the representative system (cf. Bengtsson and Christensen, 2014). The present study only concerns protest since this is the form of political participation that has the closest ties to political dissatisfaction.
Turkey, Russia and Ukraine are excluded since they are not democratic, while Israel is excluded since it is outside a European context and has a disputed democratic record when it comes to the Palestinian segment of the population. Some individuals are excluded because of missing data.
The prevailing definitions of protest or direct political action do not necessary entail that the activities are disruptive or regime challenging (Barnes et al, 1979; Quaranta, 2013, p. 459). However, protesting should involve more than symbolic gestures, such as signing a piece of paper or clicking a button. Taking part in demonstrations is a visible political manifestation that requires substantial efforts on behalf of the participants and therefore constitutes the most appropriate indicator. Furthermore, the data show that among those who took part in a demonstration, 64 per cent signed a petition and 39 per cent boycotted products, while the opposite relationship is weaker since only 19 per cent of those who signed a petition and 17 per cent of those who boycotted took part in demonstrations. Hence, while being an active demonstrator makes it more likely to sign petitions or boycott the opposite does not necessarily hold true.
Previous studies examining the usefulness of different typologies have often classified respondents according to their scores on the variables of interest (Geissel, 2008, p. 44; Webb, 2013). However, this approach makes it necessary to decide whether to use the absolute mean (under or over 0.5 on a scale 0–1) or the relative mean (under or over the population mean) as a threshold. It is also necessary to decide what do with the potentially large number of intermediate scores falling in close vicinity to the cut-off values.
The indexes measuring political trust and internal political efficacy are used since the confirmatory factor analysis shows it is important to consider the covariation between the indicators for these.
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Christensen, H. All the same? Examining the link between three kinds of political dissatisfaction and protest. Comp Eur Polit 14, 781–801 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2014.52
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2014.52