Networks of Grievances: Social Capital and Mainstream Party Decline

Abstract

Why does support for mainstream parties decline? A growing literature points to economic loss as a source of political resentment. We bring this explanation one step further providing a novel mechanism linking economic decline to anti-mainstream vote. We posit that the local economy qualifies the role of social capital in forging systemic support. When the economy thrives, social capital augments economic optimism via interpersonal interactions. When the economy declines, however, social capital exacerbates discontent, leading to a diffusion of grievances within the community. We test our “networks of grievances” hypothesis in two settings. We first show how economic conditions shape the impact of social capital on non-mainstream vote in Italy, which offers individual level information together with fine-grained municipality-level social capital data. Second, we test the mechanism underlying our theory combining survey and local administrative data across 18 European countries. The results suggest that “networks of grievances” operate as channels of political discussions with peers, converting retrospective evaluations into systemic discontent. Our findings carry important implications for our understanding of anti-mainstream vote as well as for our conceptualization of social capital.