The Consequences of Collective Discontent: A New Measure of Zeitgeist Predicts Voting for Extreme Parties

Abstract

In recent years, extreme right-wing and left-wing political parties and actors have gained popularity in many Western countries. What motivates people to vote for extreme right-or left-wing parties? In previous research, we showed that a collectively shared sense of doom and gloom about society can exist among citizens who, individually, experience high well-being. Previous research developed an operationalization of this collective societal discontent as an aspect of Zeitgeist, which can be compared to personal experiences (van der Bles, Postmes, & Meijer, 2015). In the present research, we investigated whether this Zeitgeist of societal discontent predicts voting for extreme parties. We conducted a field study during the 2015 Dutch provincial elections (N 5 407). Results showed that collective societal discontent (Zeitgeist) predicted voting for extreme parties but that personal discontent did not. Results also showed that pessimistic Zeitgeist was associated with lower education levels and tabloid-style media consumption. These findings advance our understanding of the discontents that fuel extreme voting outcomes: Global and abstract (negative) beliefs about society are more consequential than concrete personal experiences.

The role of relative deprivation in majority‐culture support for multiculturalism

“…These authors found that collective pessimism about society in general is largely decoupled from personal wellbeing. Further, they found that while collective societal discontent predicted voting for extreme parties, including those with anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism platforms, personal discontent did not (van der Bles et al, 2018). The authors conclude that, even without direct personal experience of societal problems, people may still perceive society as problem-ridden.…”

Disentangling Societal Discontent and Intergroup Threat: Explaining Actions Towards Refugees and Towards the State

“…As the various aspects or manifestations of discontent strongly relate to each other, the different measures of discontent (including very broad measures) also predict similar outcomes, such as voting for parties that are more at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, both leftand right-wing (Steenvoorden & Harteveld, 2018;van der Bles et al, 2017). For example, political distrust is a strong indicator of dissatisfaction with the way society is functioning (van der Meer & Hakhverdian, 2016) and has, in previous research, been associated with voting for populist radical right parties, which seek to radically change societal arrangements concerning immigration and civil rights (Rooduijn, 2017;Rooduijn et al, 2016).…”

“…A third conceptualisation is that societal discontent is a more generalized perception, a negative Zeitgeist, that citizens in society are collectively suffering the consequences of various societal issues, such as a high prevalence of financial inequality, corruption, crime and asocial behaviour (van der Bles et al, 2015). This negative Zeitgeist has been shown to predict attributing the cause of negative events to society (van der Bles et al, 2015) and voting for parties that protest against the political mainstream in The Netherlands (van der Bles et al, 2017). In the current political landscape in The Netherlands, the parties that protest against the political mainstream usually also protest against migration policies.…”

Discontent With What? Linking Self-Centered and Society-Centered Discontent to Populist Party Support

“…As Mols and Jetten (2016: 275) point out, populist leaders are "crafty identity entrepreneurs who are able to turn objective relative gratification into perceived relative deprivation." In summary, while different notions of discontent play a prominent role in various theoretical accounts of populism, few studies have investigated the role of discontent empirically (Elchardus and Spruyt, 2016;Mols and Jetten, 2014;Van Der Bles et al, 2018). We expand on this emerging line of research by employing a theoretical conceptualization of discontent whose empirical relevance is yet to be shown, by assuming that subjective discontent is a key variable in explaining populist party support, and by focusing on its consequences on populist party preferences (i.e.…”