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Discontent and Aggressive Political Participation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Edward N. Muller  and
Thomas O. Jukam
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Extract

People who take part in acts of civil disobedience or political violence are discontented about something. That is a truism. The interesting research problem is to identify particular kinds of discontent that are associated systematically with aggressive political behaviour-discontent that operates as a ‘precondition’ of aggressive behaviour in contrast to discontent that is peculiar to particular groups at particular times and places and serves only as a ‘precipitant’ of aggressive behaviour.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 159 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 See Russett, Bruce M., ‘Inequality and Instability: The Relation of Land Tenure to Political Instability’, World Politics, XVI (1964), 442–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nagel, Jack, ‘Inequality and Discontent: A Nonlinear Hypothesis’, World Politics, XXVI (1974), 453–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sigelman, Lee and Simpson, Miles, ‘A Cross-National Test of the Linkage Between Economic Inequality and Political Violence’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, XXI (1977), 105–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Davies, James C., ‘Toward a Theory of Revolution’, American Sociological Review, XXVII (1962), 5–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feierabend, Ivo K., Feierabend, Rosalind L. and Nesvold, Betty A., ‘Social Change and Political Violence; Cross-National Patterns’ in Graham, Hugh Davis and Gurr, Ted Robert, eds, Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Signet Books, 1969), pp. 606–70Google Scholar; Gurr, Ted Robert, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

3 See Lenski, Gerhard, ‘Status Crystallization: A Non-Vertical Dimension of Social Status’, American Sociological Review, XIV (1954), 405–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Galtung, Johann, ‘A Structural Theory of Aggression’, Journal of Peace Research, II (1964), 95–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Sigelman, and Simpson, , ‘A Cross-National Test of the Linkage Between Economic In equality and Political Violence’, p. 125.Google Scholar

5 For a review of the literature as well as a report of results from a comparative study of five Western nations, see Barnes, Samuel H. and Kaase, Max et al. , Political Action (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979), pp. 381–447.Google Scholar

6 A recent review is Muller, Edward N., ‘The Psychology of Political Protest and Violence’ in Gurr, Ted Robert, ed., Handbook of Theory and Research on Political Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1980).Google Scholar The most comprehensive cross-national investigation is Barnes, and Kaase, et al. , Political Action.Google Scholar

7 Davies, , ‘Toward a Theory of Revolution’.Google Scholar

8 Feierabend, , Feierabend, and Nesvold, , ‘Social Change and Political Violence: Cross-National Patterns’Google Scholar; Gurr, , Why Men Rebel.Google Scholar

9 An indirect test of the J-Curve hypothesis was carried out by Grofman, Bernard and Muller, Edward N., ‘The Strange Case of Relative Gratification and Potential for Political Violence: The V-Curve Hypothesis’, American Political Science Review, LXVII (1973), 514–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, using data collected in Waterloo, Iowa, after serious civil disturbances that took place during 1967 and 1968. Respondents were given a ladder scale developed by Cantril, Hadley, The Pattern of Human Concerns (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965)Google Scholar, with the topmost rung (10) labelled the best possible situation in regard to a given need and the lowest rung (0) labelled the worst possible situation in regard to that need. The needs specified were: work situation, total family income, housing accommodation, and chances of being able to get your children a good education. Respondents placed themselves on the ladder with respect to each need at three points in time: the present, five years in the past, and five years in the future. This method equates expected need satisfaction with respondents' conception of a best possible level; actual need satisfaction in the respondents' designation of where they stood, and will stand on the ladder. The higher the standing on the ladder, the lower the perceived discrepancy between expectation and achievement.

Six patterns of past-present-future change were differentiated: Rise and Drop (the Davies J-Curve), Decreasing, No-Change Deprivation, No-Change Gratification, Increasing, and Drop and Rise. The lowest scores on a scale of potential for political violence were registered by respondents in both no-change patterns; comparatively higher potential for political violence scores were registered by those whose expectation-achievement discrepancy was changing, whether for better or worse. Thus, the relation of expectation-achievement to potential for political violence was described not by a J-Curve but rather by a V-Curve, according to which potential for political violence is highest among those who perceive not only increasing expectation-achievement discrepancy (change for the worse) but also decreasing expectation-achievement discrepancy (change for the better), lowest among those who perceive no change in expectation-achievement discrepancy.

Subsequent comparative research has replicated the V-Curve pattern (the study of national probability samples of the adult populations of Austria, Britain, Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands and the United States reported in Barnes, and Kaase, et al. , Political Action)Google Scholar but has shown that it does not have any direct effect on participation in aggressive political behaviour once other relevant predictors are taken into account (see the study of a pooled sample drawn from twelve communities in the Federal Republic of Germany reported in Muller, , Aggressive Political Participation).Google Scholar

10 Gurr, , Why Men Rebel.Google Scholar

11 Galtung, , ‘A Structural Theory of Aggression’.Google Scholar

12 Other status discrepancies may also contribute to status frustration. However, given Galtung's theoretical work, we think education should be especially salient as a standard for rank disequilibrium. In addition, space limitations have precluded our consideration of all other discrepancies.

13 Muller, , Aggressive Political Participation, pp. 37–68.Google Scholar

14 The effect of this transformation is to compress the middle-to-very-old ages into a small range at the low end of the scale (people between the ages of 90 and 50 receive scores on youth between 0·01 and 0·02) and to spread out the young over the high range.

15 The correlations of the weighted just deserts frustration variables with Aggressive Political Participation for the two samples are as follows: General public – Housing 0·21, Health 0·10, Community 0·12, Children 0·20, Schooling 0·15, Work 0·18, Life 0·11; University – Housing 0·16, Health 0·12, Community 0·24, Children 0·35, Schooling 0·13, Work 0·12, Life 0·01.

16 Muller, Edward N., Jukam, Thomas O., and Seligson, Mitchell A., ‘Diffuse Political Support and Antisystem Political Behaviour: A Comparative Analysis’, American Journal of Political Science, XXVI (1982), 240–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 When the Aggressive Political Participation (APP) scale is regressed on the indicators of diffuse political discontent, the result is:

APP = 7·08 + 1·72* Unresponsive − 0·36* Distrust + 0·60* Alienation

(1·74) (0·56) (0·11)

where R 2 = 0·22 (adj. R 2 = 0·20), N = 182, and standard errors are given in parentheses. The standardized coefficients for Unresponsive and Distrust are 0·08 and −0·05, respectively.

18 The mean inter-item r is 0·70 for the general public and 0·55 for the University. The composite index, called Status in the text, was constructed by summing across the three items. The resulting status frustration variable ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 9, indicating a maximum of status frustration.

19 See discussion in Muller, , Aggressive Political Participation, pp. 83–8.Google Scholar

20 Easton, David, A System Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965)Google Scholar; Easton, David, ‘A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support’, British Journal of Political Science, v (1975), 435–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muller, Edward N. and Jukam, Thomas O., ‘On the Meaning of Political Support’, American Political Science Review, LXXI (1977), 1561–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 For the distribution of Aggressive Political Participation in the West German data, see Figure 3.3 of Muller, , Aggressive Political Participation, p. 52.Google Scholar