Exploring the Ground: Grievances and Protest

Social media as an exit strategy? The role of attitudes of discontent in explaining non-electoral political participation among Belgian young adults

“…Therefore, discontent should not only be considered in relation with the economic system, but also applied to democracy and governance (Wauters 2018). This sense of 'political discontent' broadly captures citizens' perception about the functioning of democracy and can therefore be understood as negative evaluations of political actors and institutions (Kriesi et al 2020;Portos 2021). As the concept taps into different dimensions relating to both political support as well as feelings of political (dis)empowerment (Christensen 2016), the current study includes three specific attitudinal indicators of political discontent: trust, political hopelessness and populist attitudes.…”

“…A prominent part of research applying grievance theory focusses on the role of economic grievances, such as deprivation or unemployment (Caren et al 2017;Ejrnaes 2017;Kern et al 2015), while less attention has been paid to grievances targeted at the political system (Koopmans 2005). Therefore, we focus on attitudes of political discontent, which broadly refer to negative evaluations of the functioning of democracy and politics and are understood to push citizens away from institutional forms of politics (Kriesi et al 2020;Portos 2021). Some citizens who experience these feelings of dissatisfaction with the democratic 'status-quo', might choose to exit the political game, by abstaining from voting and any other form of political participation.…”