ABSTRACT
While grievances were often regarded as a constant among the disadvantaged and were supposed to add little explanatory power to the analysis of social movements, research indicated that mobilisations under the Great Recession spread as an explicit reaction towards increasing austerity policies, social inequality, and related political discontent, leading to a renewed interest in social disparities as determinants of protest. In this chapter, we examine the impact of both economic and political grievances on the political behaviour among protesters, developing three key arguments. First, grievances influence the intensity of political engagement among people who mobilise. Second, even in periods of economic downturn and backlash, political discontent and dissatisfaction (rather than economic grievances) are key predictors of the intensity of participation in contentious activities among progressive Italians who are already mobilised. Third, the impact of political grievances is asymmetric, shaping protesters’ levels of involvement in protest and other non-institutional activities, but not electoral turnout and membership of civil society organisations. Overall, we suggest that the emphasis on cultural dimensions, as strongly connected with social exclusion in a moment of a growing right-wing challenge, could have strengthened a political definition of the main grievances.
