In the gray zone: How representational deficit moderates the effect of openness on protest participation

Abstract

This article investigates how the governmental status quo alters the effect of individuals’ openness as a predisposition for protest participation. We define the governmental status quo as individuals’ standing or position within the political system, contingent upon their party’s current status in government. Based on this, we clasify voters into three groups: Opposition voters, junior coalition partners’ voters (JCPV), and senior coalition partners’ voters (SCPV) or single-party government voters (SPGV). SCPV and SPGV are expected to have lower protest motivation due to their substantial governmental representation, whereas opposition voters, with lacking any governmental representation, are more likely to be motivated to protest. Nevertheless, given their fuzzy position that alleviates the effect of the representational deficit on their protest behavior, we argue that the protest participation of JCPV is more likely to be driven by their basic values belonging to the openness dimension. Statistical analyses based on data from the European Social Survey support our hypothesis, highlighting the stronger effect of stimulation, one of the components of the openness dimensions in Schwart's basic human values, for the JCPV compared to other voter categories.