Abstract
Resentment is a complex, multi-layered emotion, within which perceptions of unfairness and feelings of anger are central. When linked to politics, it has predominantly been associated with the alleged “crisis of representative democracy” and populism. However, recent studies have shown that resentment can intervene positively in people’s relations to politics and political institutions by facilitating certain types of political participation (Capelos & Demertzis, 2018). Despite this, the concept of resentment, and hence its role in contemporary representative democracy, is often poorly defined, with empirical investigations of its manifestation(s) remaining scarce. Borrowing a conceptualization of resentment as “resentful affectivity,” our article draws on the analysis of focus groups carried out in Belgium (2019–2020) with individuals where resentful affectivity is likely to be observed (i.e., contemporary movements of contestation such as the Yellow Vests, Youth for Climate, and individuals who occupy a socially disadvantaged position). We find that experiences of intense anger, fear, disappointment, and the unfairness of representative democracy, i.e., of how representative democracy works on the ground, coexist simultaneously with remaining hopes in the democratic system. We show how this complex blend of emotions confronts citizens with what we call a “democratic dilemma.” We document the different ways in which citizens cope with this dilemma and conclude by highlighting both the positive and negative ways in which resentment intervenes in the contemporary “crisis of representative democracy.”
Highlights
Recent decades have been marked by what is com‐ monly described as a “crisis of representative democ‐ racy” (Crouch, 2004; Merkel et al, 2011; Tormey, 2014, 2015) to denote the increasing distrust, and defiance, that citizens express towards the institutions and actors of representative politics
For the purposes of this article, we focus on the discussions that took place in four focus groups (19 participants in total) carried out in the Brussels region: one focus group with participants in the Yellow Vests protest, one with par‐ ticipants of Youth for Climate, one with inhabitants of Molenbeek, and one with blue‐collar workers in the European Parliament
Participants’ expressions of resentment were grounded in a combi‐ nation of contradictory emotions: anger, fear, disgust, desperation, and unfairness, and hope, feelings of empowerment, and enthusiasm. This affectivity is expressed in relation to a profound dissatisfaction with the way “representative democracy works,” but not a wholesale rejection of democracy as a principle, or as an ideal to attain
Summary
Recent decades have been marked by what is com‐ monly described as a “crisis of representative democ‐ racy” (Crouch, 2004; Merkel et al, 2011; Tormey, 2014, 2015) to denote the increasing distrust, and defiance, that citizens express towards the institutions and actors of representative politics (see Droste, 2021, for a com‐ plementary analysis of feelings and beliefs among many citizens “left behind” and unheard by unresponsive polit‐ical decision makers). 2007), the extant literature which focuses on the vari‐ ous deficits of electoral representation, populism, and anti‐establishment politics, has increasingly paid atten‐ tion to emotions (Cramer, 2016; Hay, 2007; Hochschild, 2016; Marcus, 2002; for an illustration of the role emo‐ tions play in citizens’ political behaviours in the context of the Brexit vote, see Sullivan, 2021) In this context, hate and disdain are often presented as intrinsic to citizens’ troubled relationships with pol‐ itics (Hay, 2007), and their feelings of being marginal‐ ized, undermined, and unrepresented are concomitantly found to be key explanatory factors in political events that mark our times, like the Brexit vote or the election of Trump (Akkerman et al, 2014; Bachman & Sideway, 2016; Canovan, 1999; Cramer, 2016; Dodd et al, 2017; Hochschild, 2016; Kaltwasser & Van Hauwaert, 2020; Spruyt et al, 2016). In contrast to this dominant understanding, or at least one strongly linked to it, other scholars point to resentment as engender‐ ing critical political engagement and thereby strengthen‐ ing, invigorating, and innovating representative democ‐ racy (Capelos & Demertzis, 2018; Norris, 2011)
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