Values and emotionality in Greek political culture: a study of ressentiment
Values and emotionality in Greek political culture: a study of ressentiment
In this article, we provide a theoretical discussion of ressentiment within the emerging fields of the political sociology and political psychology of emotions and offer an empirical investigation of its political-cultural function. The complex emotion of ressentiment refers to a recurrent rumination on negative feelings and an affective compensation for life failures. Extant studies show ressentiment can be linked to electoral support for populist, anti-immigration and far-right parties, and can provide leverage for major sociopolitical upheavals. Using the World Values Survey 7th wave dataset for Greece we analyse the psychological components and political expressions of ressentiment testing three hypotheses on its relationship with efficacy and life satisfaction, value systems and political violence. The analysis is possible due to an original six-item ressentiment scale that we offer as a novel measure of this emotional phenomenon. We find a limited distribution of ressentiment in Greece concentrated among economically and socially disadvantaged segments of society. We also find that ressentiment scores link monotonically with overall life dissatisfaction and diminished political interest, lack of efficacy, low interpersonal trust and aversion for sociocentric and emancipative values. Traces of dormant support for violence are evident in responses about violence against others where ressentiment-ful participants score higher compared with their less ressentiment-ful counterparts. We discuss the implications of our findings for the quality of democracy, authoritarian populism and nationalism.
Complex emotions, Political interest, Populism, Ressentiment-scale, WVS
27-48
Demertzis, Nicolas
e37d29c2-b77a-4c3e-832b-35ee6a8e6af8
Papadoudis, George
adc5ede8-66df-4dc4-81d3-39f62f0964d7
Capelos, Tereza
bd3b5744-cbcc-44a4-9b73-b088d82154e7
1 March 2022
Demertzis, Nicolas
e37d29c2-b77a-4c3e-832b-35ee6a8e6af8
Papadoudis, George
adc5ede8-66df-4dc4-81d3-39f62f0964d7
Capelos, Tereza
bd3b5744-cbcc-44a4-9b73-b088d82154e7
Demertzis, Nicolas, Papadoudis, George and Capelos, Tereza
(2022)
Values and emotionality in Greek political culture: a study of ressentiment.
Emotions and Society, 4 (1), .
(doi:10.1332/263169021X16369909746307).
Abstract
In this article, we provide a theoretical discussion of ressentiment within the emerging fields of the political sociology and political psychology of emotions and offer an empirical investigation of its political-cultural function. The complex emotion of ressentiment refers to a recurrent rumination on negative feelings and an affective compensation for life failures. Extant studies show ressentiment can be linked to electoral support for populist, anti-immigration and far-right parties, and can provide leverage for major sociopolitical upheavals. Using the World Values Survey 7th wave dataset for Greece we analyse the psychological components and political expressions of ressentiment testing three hypotheses on its relationship with efficacy and life satisfaction, value systems and political violence. The analysis is possible due to an original six-item ressentiment scale that we offer as a novel measure of this emotional phenomenon. We find a limited distribution of ressentiment in Greece concentrated among economically and socially disadvantaged segments of society. We also find that ressentiment scores link monotonically with overall life dissatisfaction and diminished political interest, lack of efficacy, low interpersonal trust and aversion for sociocentric and emancipative values. Traces of dormant support for violence are evident in responses about violence against others where ressentiment-ful participants score higher compared with their less ressentiment-ful counterparts. We discuss the implications of our findings for the quality of democracy, authoritarian populism and nationalism.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 15 November 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 14 January 2022
Published date: 1 March 2022
Keywords:
Complex emotions, Political interest, Populism, Ressentiment-scale, WVS
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 483444
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/483444
ISSN: 2631-6897
PURE UUID: 693de9b0-594d-49bf-bd7e-9fc27b3872bb
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Date deposited: 31 Oct 2023 17:33
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:15
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Contributors
Author:
Nicolas Demertzis
Author:
George Papadoudis
Author:
Tereza Capelos
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