Abstract
According to much of the extant literature, feelings and beliefs among many citizens of being left behind and unheard by unresponsive political decisionmakers, who lack moral integrity represent the epicenter of recent protest and populist discontent in democratic society. Based on survey data for 20 contemporary democracies from two ISSP waves, we found that anti-establishment attitudes are not shared among the majority of respondents. Although there are differences between country contexts. Such sentiment is associated with macrostructural dynamics, since unfavorable attitudes toward politicians are more widespread among publics in countries which are exposed to higher levels of public corruption and witnessed increasing levels of income inequality. Besides, such sentiment is also restricted to particular social groups of society, because hostile feelings toward political decisionmakers are stronger among citizens in the lower ranks of society and among younger birth cohorts. Since the beginning of the century and throughout the Great Recession, unfavorable attitudes toward politicians have not increased among the public in advanced democracies. However, our analysis indicates that respondents with such attitudes have increasingly turned toward voting for anti-elite parties to raise their voice and now make use of online options to express their political views more frequently than in the past. Overall, the analysis contributes to recent research on populist and reactionist dynamics in contemporary democracies by addressing dynamics and structures of the feeling of being left behind by political decisionmakers and its implications for political (in)activity.
Highlights
As Mair (2013, p. 19) observes: “The political class has become a matter of contention.” Nowadays, democra‐ cies all over the world seem to be confronted with the phenomenon of a widening gap between citizens and their elected representatives
Our first aim was to take a look at the preva‐ lence of anti‐establishment sentiment, i.e., negative atti‐ tudes toward political officials, and to identify which social groups are more discontented with the political elite than others as well as which social macro‐contexts are associated with such sentiment
We have focused on the consequence of discontent with politicians for political participation and explored whether citizens with more negative attitudes toward political decisionmakers have rather become politically active over time or politically apathetic
Summary
As Mair (2013, p. 19) observes: “The political class has become a matter of contention.” Nowadays, democra‐ cies all over the world seem to be confronted with the phenomenon of a widening gap between citizens and their elected representatives. It should be noted that Rahn herself did not provide any definition of her concept of anti‐elite attitudes Against this backdrop, extent and social basis of anti‐establishment sentiment still remain a lacuna— when it comes to cross‐country research. The ana‐ lysis of hostile attitudes toward politicians is relevant for finer‐granulated research on populist mindsets, reac‐ tionary attitudes, and convictions of (non‐)voters and protesters This is in particular the case, since beliefs of being unheard by political decisionmakers can give rise to affects like resentment and can constitute a part of ressentiment that guides political action in populist times (Capelos & Demertzis, 2018; Capelos & Katsanidou, 2018; Salmela & Capelos, 2021; Salmela & von Scheve, 2017)
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