Abstract
The Yellow Vests (YV) movement stands out because of its length and its unusual violent outbursts. This paper aims to better understand the emotional path underlying YVs’ intention to engage in more or less radical collective action. To this end, we opposed two models: one based on Becker and Tausch’s (2015) model of engagement in collective action – whereby only contempt is supposed to predict radical collective action – and one based on Matsumoto, Frank and Hwang’s (2017) ANCODI hypothesis – according to which anger, contempt and disgust as a whole are supposed to predict radical collective action. We assumed that support for the YVs’ demands would be associated with negative emotions (i.e., anger, contempt and disgust) towards the government which in turn would foster behavioral intentions in favor of YV. The results (Study 1, N = 677; Study 2, N = 738) confirmed this hypothesis and also showed that the model in which negative emotions (i.e., anger and contempt) are treated separately (i.e., Becker and Tausch’s model) presented a better fit with the data. Taken together, these results suggest that negative emotions towards the French president and his government have a key role in understanding the Yellow Vests mobilization.
Highlights
The Yellow Vest (YV) movement appeared in France in October 2018 in response to an increase in fuel taxes
In order to test whether anger and contempt mediated the relationship between support for the YVs’ demands and behavioral intentions, and whether the link between emotions and behavioral intentions was stronger as individuals perceived the government as unwilling to meet the YVs’ demands, we estimated the effects via a bootstrapping procedure (1,000 samples, bias corrected)
Regarding our parallel mediation hypothesis, results showed that indirect effects were significant via contempt and anger
Summary
The Yellow Vest (YV) movement appeared in France in October 2018 in response to an increase in fuel taxes. Starting in November 2018, YVs were active on roundabouts in rural or peri-urban areas and began to protest every Saturday. Urban clashes (e.g., breaking store windows, setting fire to cars) quickly emerged, suggesting the ‘radical’ tendencies – i.e., a willingness to engage in violent and illegal political actions (Moskalenko & McCauley, 2009) – of some YV protesters. Between November and July 2019, yellow vest rallies resulted in approximately 11,000 people in police custody and around 3,000 convictions (Ministry of Justice) and thousands of YV protesters were wounded, including twenty-four lost eyes and five hands blown off (Dufresne, 2019). Scale and the sometimes violent protests, the YV movement represents an unusual social phenomenon that this article aims to better understand
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