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Deprivation in the Midst of Plenty: Citizen Polarization and Political Protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2020

John D. Griffin Open the ORCID record for John D. Griffin [Opens in a new window] ,
Chad Kiewiet de Jonge  and
Vania Ximena Velasco-Guachalla
John D. Griffin*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
Chad Kiewiet de Jonge
Affiliation:
Division of Political Studies, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Distrito Federal, CP, México
Vania Ximena Velasco-Guachalla
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: John.Griffin@colorado.edu
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Abstract

This article elaborates relative deprivation theory to a societal level to argue that political unrest is rooted in the polarization of citizens' grievance judgments, rather than the mean level of societal grievance. Using data from twelve cross-national survey projects, it examines the relationship between citizen polarization and political protest in eighty-four democracies and semi-democracies from 1977 to 2010. The study finds that countries with more polarized citizens are more likely to experience nonviolent protest. Protests are most likely in countries where average citizen grievances are low but citizens are polarized, which is consistent with the elaborated theoretical expectations of relative deprivation theory.

Keywords

relative deprivationgrievancepolarizationpolitical protest
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 1080 - 1096
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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