Political Right Party Movement in Europe

Article

Emotional Dynamics of Right- and Left-wing Political Populism

Mikko Salmela1 and Christian von Scheve2

Abstract Emotions are prevalent in the rhetoric of populist politicians and among their elec- torate. We argue that partially dissimilar emotional processes may be driving right- and left-wing populism. Existing research has associated populism with fear and insecurities experienced in contemporary societies, on the one hand, and with anger, resentment, and hatred, on the other. Yet there are significant differences in the targets of right- and left-wing resentment: A political and economic establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left) and political and cultural elites accused of favoring ethnic, religious, and sexual out-groups at the expense of the neglected in- group (right). Referring to partially different emotional opportunity structures and distinct political strategies at exploiting these structures, we suggest that right-wing populism is characterized by repressed shame that transforms fear and insecurity into anger, resentment, and hatred against perceived “enemies” of the precarious self. Left- wing populism, in turn, associates more with acknowledged shame that allows indi- viduals to self-identify as aggrieved and humiliated by neoliberal policies and their advocates. The latter type of shame holds emancipatory potential as it allows indi- viduals to establish bonds with others who feel the same, whereas repressors remain in their shame or seek bonds from repression-mediated defensive anger and hatred.

1 Practical Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 2 Institute of Sociology, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Mikko Salmela, Practical Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland.

Email: [email protected]

Humanity & Society 2018, Vol. 42(4) 434-454

ª The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0160597618802521

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Keywords emotions, emotional opportunity structures, emotional mechanisms, right-wing populism, left-wing populism

Joint Reflexive Statement

Mikko Salmela works in the areas of empirically informed philosophy of emotions,

philosophy of sociality, and philosophical psychology and Christian von Scheve in

the fields of the sociology of emotion, culture, and stratification. Their interest in

political populism is motivated by recent shifts in the political landscapes in Europe

and the United States that have led to an increasing support for especially right-

wing populist parties among the electorate. In an effort to better understand these

shifts, Salmela and von Scheve have extended their yearslong collaboration on the

social dimensions of emotions to develop theoretical models of, first, right-wing

populist and, later on, also left-wing populist support that account for both macro-

level structural changes and microlevel psychological factors.

Populist parties and political movements have risen or become stronger all over

Europe in the aftermath of the European Union (EU)’s financial crisis, the politics of

austerity, and the increasing number of refugees and immigrants. This development has

been similar in countries such as Greece and Spain where radical cuts to welfare transfers

and services were implemented as a precondition for bailout loans but also in countries

such as Finland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands that contributed to the bailout

while struggling with the crisis themselves. Together, the downturn that was initiated by

the crisis and its management created a reservoir of discontent, despair, and anger among

many Europeans. These collective emotions have fueled protests against governments

held responsible for unjustified and unpopular politics (e.g., Gerbaudo 2017).

Our aim in this article is to make a contribution to explaining the emergence and

success of different types of populism in structurally and socially similar conditions

of modernization, globalization, and economic deregulation that are widely per-

ceived as crisis-laden (e.g., Brubaker 2017). Given that these changes have affected

individuals similarly across Europe and other parts of the world, why have these

processes predominantly harbored support for the political right rather than the left

that has traditionally benefited from wide-ranging social dissatisfaction? While the

recent rise of populism has been global (see Moffitt 2016), we limit our discussion to

electorally successful and well-researched cases of right- and left-wing populism in

Europe and North America.

Right-wing populist parties have garnered significant support in Western, East-

ern, Central, and Northern Europe as well as in the United States. In contrast, left-

wing populism has advanced in some, mainly Southern European countries such as

Greece and Spain (countries most severely hit by the financial crisis and policies

Salmela and von Scheve 435

designed to its remedy), although the success of old-school socialists Jeremy Corbyn

in the United Kingdom and Bernie Sanders in the United States who target economic

elites in their antiestablishment politics can be interpreted as left-wing populist as

well. Even so, the preponderance of right-wing populism on both sides of the

Atlantic suggests that we may take it as a dominant type of populism in contempo-

rary Western societies, while successful cases of left-wing populism appear as

exceptions that need different type(s) of explanation. 1

In this article, we aim to develop theoretical propositions, based on existing

empirical research in the social sciences, that may contribute to explaining why in

the aftermath of the recent crises, right-wing populist parties have received consid-

erably more support from the electorate than left-wing populist parties. Our

approach builds on previous work (Salmela and von Scheve 2017) in which we

have identified two social psychological mechanisms that drive support for the

populist right. 2

The first mechanism is linked to feelings of ressentiment and

explains how negative emotions (in particular fear and insecurity) transform,

through repressed individual shame, into anger, resentment, and hatred toward var-

ious out-groups. The second mechanism relates to the emotional distancing from

social identities that inflict shame and other self-focused negative emotions and

instead promotes seeking identities that are perceived to be less crisis-afflicted and

to some extent exclusive, such as nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Based on this

work, we ask how these (and other) mechanisms might operate in the context of left-

wing populist support and whether they can contribute to explaining cross-national

differences in right- and left-wing support.

This comparative stance inevitably points to the more established differences

between political parties and ideologies and can thus in principle also be

extended to right- and left-wing parties more generally. However, our approach

capitalizes on the rise of “new” populist parties because they can be understood

as epitomes of processes of emotionalization and an affective polarization of

politics (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012) to which our theoretical model speaks

first and foremost.

In the following, we first introduce the concept of emotional opportunity struc-

tures (EOSs; Ruiz-Junco 2013), a form of political opportunity structures (Meyer

2004; Tilly 1978), that have been invoked in accounting for historical contingen-

cies on which the attractiveness and mobilization potential of social movements

may hinge. In a second step, we briefly review some of the existing research on

emotions in political populism and suggest that EOSs are essential in rendering

populist politics and rhetoric more or less appealing, depending on the strategies of

exploiting a specific EOS and on the specific cultural and historical context. In a

third step, we provide a detailed outline of ressentiment as a complex emotional

mechanism that emerges from the overarching EOS of contemporary neoliberal

capitalism. We then specify the workings of this mechanism in different national

contexts and under varying EOS, emphasizing their consequences for the support

and appeal of right- and left-wing populism. In particular, these differences pertain

436 Humanity & Society 42(4)

to (a) the repression versus acknowledgment of shame, (b) different organizational

cultures of right- and left-wing movements, and (c) and distinct ways of appealing

to different forms of identity. Finally, we offer a conclusion and provide an outlook

on future research.

Emotional Opportunity Structures of Political Populism

Looking at contemporary right- and left-wing populist parties across Europe, it is not

surprising that many have emerged from or made close alliances with corresponding

social movements. Even where this is not the case, many of the parties are newly

founded parties that, especially in their early years, but in some cases also later when

they become more popular, have strong resemblances with social movement orga-

nizations. The German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was founded in 2013, the

Polish Law and Justice in 2001, the Greek SYRIZA in 2004, and Spanish Podemos in

2014. In order to understand the success of right- and left-wing populist parties, it

thus seems reasonable to also consider explanatory models from social movements

research.

In this literature, opportunity structures or political opportunity structures are

seen as answers to the question of how social movements emerge at a given time

(Meyer 2004:127). Going beyond established collective behavior or resource mobi-

lization accounts, the concept of opportunity structures broadly refers to move-

ments’ external social and political circumstances in explaining why movements

(can) emerge in the first place. In a review of the existing literature, McAdam

(1996:27) identifies four key dimensions of political opportunities: (1) openness

or closure of the institutionalized political system, (2) relative stability of the elite

alignments that undergird a polity, (3) presence or absence of elite allies, and (4) the

state’s capacity for repression. McAdam (1996) and others (e.g., Gamson and Meyer

1996) are careful to distinguish these specifically political opportunity structures

from other external constraints on or facilitators of social movements, such as

structural or cultural opportunities, the latter of which, according to McAdam

(1996), includes inflated contradictions between ideational values and actual prac-

tices, the dramatization of a society’s vulnerability or illegitimacy, or certain types

of events, for instance, legal decisions, pandemics, or disasters. In fact, Gamson and

Meyer (1996) sort the factors contributing to political opportunity along a cultural–

institutional axis (see also Polletta 2004).

Looking at the success of (newly emerged) right- and left-wing populist parties,

this raises the question of which opportunity structures might have contributed to the

success of these parties and how this occurred in different countries. On the one

hand, certain structural and cultural opportunities have been present in many Eur-

opean countries to varying degrees and in different shapes due to the debt crisis since

2008 and the refugee crisis since the beginning of 2015. Although these develop-

ments present “opportunities” for political exploitation on the left and right, they do

so differently in different countries. For example, most Southern European countries

Salmela and von Scheve 437

were more severely hit by the debt crisis than Northern and Western European

countries, who instead contributed to bailout loans. Likewise, migration routes of

refugees initially disproportionately affected Southern and Southeastern European

countries, whereas in later stages, Western European countries (also) accommodated

large numbers of refugees. On the other hand, there is a host of domestic political

opportunities that may promote either right- or left-wing populist parties to thrive,

for instance, terrorist attacks, events such as the sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve

2015 in Cologne and other German cities, or Greek mainstream politicians request-

ing blame for the financial crisis be directed at the entire Greek society rather than at

political and economic elites alone (Xenakis and Cheliotis 2014), or collective

memories of emancipation from communism in Central and Eastern Europe that

may serve as sounding board for nationalist sentiments in these countries. Moreover,

genuinely political opportunities have contributed to the rise of populist parties, for

example, the weakening of the Social Democrats and Liberals in Germany or the

1993 electoral reform in Italy that contributed to Silvio Berlusconi’s success (Fella

and Ruzza 2013).

Certainly, these opportunities may contribute to explaining the success of both,

right- and left-wing parties, but they are not particularly convincing for explaining

the rise of populist parties. Regarding this explanatory gap, we suggest that EOSs

can add to our understanding of the differential success of right- and left-wing

populist parties. Social movements research has for several years emphasized the

relevance of emotions for the emergence and success of movements. Ruiz-Junco’s

(2013) overview of this literature summarizes the crucial role that emotions play in

terms of (1) the management and regulation of emotions in and through social

movements, (2) the particular framing of political issues in such a way that it creates

an emotional resonance, (3) the larger emotional culture within which process of

emotion regulation and emotional framing take place, and (4) emotional opportuni-

ties which present themselves when certain structural, institutional, and cultural

arrangements either permit and foster or obstruct and render unintelligible some

emotions but not others (see also Whittier 2001).

EOS, sometimes also referred to as “libidinal opportunity structures” (Goodwin

1997), can thus be conceived of, first, as specific constellations in the structural and

institutional “makeup” of a society that act as reference points for the appraisal

processes underlying citizens’ emotions. They are the macrosocial eliciting condi-

tions for certain emotions and at the same time may hinder the generation of other

emotions. Insecurity and anxiety in a society plagued by economic downturn and

unemployment are obvious examples, as would be envy and shame in a society that

promotes constant social comparison. By contrast, secure employment and future

prospects in a society are supposed to hinder resentment against immigrants. In

existing research on populism, structural factors of this kind and the emotions

triggered by them are often referred to as belonging to the “demand” side of popu-

lism (e.g., Guiso, Herrera, and Morelli 2017). The notion of EOS highlights the

connection between structural conditions and changes in a society and their likely

438 Humanity & Society 42(4)

emotional consequences, which the notion of “demand” alone does not explicate.

Second, EOSs are constituted and maintained by social and cultural processes that

render (certain) emotions more visible, desirable, and acceptable than others. Fear in

a “culture of fear” (Furedi 2007) or happiness in a culture that relentlessly empha-

sizes positive emotions (Ahmed 2010) are good examples of distinct emotions that

are enabled by specific emotional opportunities and also reflect a dominant emo-

tional culture.

We suggest that the concept of EOS can help us understand why in certain

countries left-wing rather than right-wing populist parties have been so successful

and why populist parties rather than the more established parties have garnered this

much attention and managed to mobilize voters in significant numbers. Importantly,

we suppose that the existence of EOS is not linked to a specific political party or

movement. Parties and movements, at least within a comparable social and cultural

context, such as the nation-state, generally face the same EOS. Whether they turn

these structures into actual opportunities for mobilization and political support is a

question of their respective strategies and rhetoric and their (distinct) ways of inter-

preting, framing, and conveying the meanings and implications of these structures in

discursive ways. With their rhetoric, populist movements and parties can be partic-

ularly adept at tapping into new emotional opportunities that emerge in new struc-

tural conditions and from their mismatch with existing emotional cultures. We

illustrate this conjecture by first outlining the general associations between populism

and emotions and second by discussing how these associations may work differently

for right- and left-wing populist parties.

Right- and Left-wing Populist Exploitation of EOS

Existing research on populism has focused on two clusters of negative emotions that

fuel the rise of populist parties and movements, either left or right: feelings of fear

associated with insecurity, powerlessness, and déclassement, on the one hand, and

anger, resentment, indignation, and hate, on the other hand. These emotions can be

understood as closely tied to social structural and cultural changes that can be

conceived of as presenting specific EOSs: Fear of losing social status and established

living standards and of becoming part of a stigmatized group, such as the unem-

ployed, have spread along with increased economic precariousness in contemporary

societies that also encompass existential, cultural, physical, and environmental

forms of uncertainty (e.g., Bauman 2001; Flecker, Hentges, and Balazs 2007; Furedi

2007; Kinnvall 2013). “Islamic terrorism” is a further source of fear that motivates

support for right-wing populist parties advocating cultural protectionism and restric-

tions on immigration. Likewise, economic changes and increasing strains on labor

with their implications for status and living standards are sources of anger and

resentment in contemporary societies (Cramer 2016; Hochschild 2016; Flecker

et al. 2007; Rackow, Schupp, and von Scheve 2012). With individualized careers

and risks, employees become more and more “entrepreneurs of the self” (Foucault

Salmela and von Scheve 439

2008) who compete with each other about various resources and recognition.

Accordingly, those who are perceived to avoid work or live off the work of others

are held responsible for creating conditions of increased competition and become

targets of anger, resentment, indignation, and hate. However, there is little under-

standing on how the emotions of right- and left-wing populists and their sympathi-

zers differ from each other. We argue that the prevailing, though historically

contingent, EOS within a specific political context and the ways in which they are

addressed and exploited by populist parties bring about these differences.

Taking the financial and debt crises since 2008/2009 as an EOS, one straightfor-

ward difference lies in the discursive construction of different targets of emotions

associated with these crises. For example, although anger and resentment are fre-

quent emotions on both sides of the political spectrum, they tend to reflect dissimilar

understandings and framings of “the people.” Contemporary right-wing populists

typically define “the people” in nativist and ethnic terms that excludes nonnative

populations such as refugees and immigrants as well as ethnic, religious, or sexual

minorities. They also devote more attention to defining the various out-groups than

their own in-group, as Mudde and Kaltwasser (2012) point out. In contrast, present-

day left-wing populists identify “the people” as all those who have been aggrieved

by neoliberal austerity politics. This understanding of “the people” is inclusionary,

as it emphasizes the equal rights of women; immigrants; and lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, and queer people (Stavrakakis and Katsambekis 2014). Likewise, for

left-wing populists in Greece and Spain, the “internal elite” is the political and

economic establishment responsible for implementing austerity politics, required

by “the external elite”: the Troika of European Commission, European Central Bank

(ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); as in the rhetoric of Alexis

Tsipras: “external troika” versus “internal troika” (Brubaker 2017:364).

For right-wing populists, “the elite” refers to political and cultural elites who

are accused of favoring, both economically and culturally, various out-groups at

the expense of “the people” defined in nativist terms. Accordingly, right-wing

populist rhetoric and discourse promote anger and resentment directed at those

who have a “good life” without hard work, such as politicians and top managers on

high and secure income, welfare recipients and refugees “looked after by the

state,” and the long-term unemployed who “avoid work,” but also at groups

perceived to be different from “us”: ethnic, cultural, political, and sexual mino-

rities. By contrast, left-wing discourse and rhetoric instill anger and resentment at

those responsible for enforcing politics perceived to increase injustice, inequality,

and precariousness, such as national governments and supranational institutions

(EU, ECB, and IMF).

Aside from these relatively straightforward differences in the targets of anger and

resentment, there are less obvious differences in the emotional dynamics of right-

and left-wing populism on which we capitalize in the following section by linking

them to shame, resentment, and ressentiment.

440 Humanity & Society 42(4)

Resentment and Ressentiment

We suggest that a critical difference in the emotional dynamics of right- and left-

wing political populism concerns the different roles of resentment and ressentiment

among their supporters. A prominent theory regarding the success of especially

right-wing populist parties has emphasized the emotion of resentment or ressenti-

ment (Betz 1994; Demertzis 2006; Berezin 2009). Resentment is a very general

affective category under which Betz (1994) discusses (a) distrust, alienation, dis-

content, cynicism, pessimism, insecurity, and feelings of powerlessness; (b) anger

about perceived unjust or unfair treatment; and (c) hate as an intensification and/or

temporal extension of resentment. While resentment is generally understood as a

long-term affective attitude a person develops in response to another’s insult, injury,

or offense (Meltzer and Musolf 2002; Strawson 1974), ressentiment in the technical

sense—as introduced by Nietzsche and first elaborated by Scheler ([1915] 1994)—

emerges from other negative emotions such as envy, malice, or spite toward another

person or persons in situations where one feels impotent to act on one of these

emotions. These emotions are then repressed and transformed into passive resent-

ment, hostility, or hatred toward the other. Moreover, ressentiment involves a sense

of powerlessness and self-disvalue in comparison with others. The main differences

between resentment and ressentiment concern the sense of one’s own powerlessness

and the repression of other negative emotions that are involved in ressentiment but

not in resentment. However, these ressentiment theories have not been eager to

clarify the other negative emotions that produce and maintain experiences of indi-

vidual weakness and powerlessness in the “background” of ressentiment, keeping it

diffuse and wide.

Whereas we (Salmela and von Scheve 2017) have previously focused on typical

patterns of ressentiment and the distancing from precarious social identities among

supporters of right-wing populist parties, in what follows, we attempt to carve out

how these mechanisms operate differently under left- and ring-wing populist rheto-

ric and discourse that serve as collective forms of emotion management, for

instance, by identifying legitimate targets of resentment and objects of solidarity.

In essence, we suggest that feelings of fear, powerlessness, insecurity, worthless-

ness, or shame—negative emotions targeting the self—fuel ressentiment among

adherents of right-wing populist parties, whereas left-wing populist parties pursue

strategies that are suited to turn these feelings into resentment without the involve-

ment of ressentiment. In the following, we argue, firstly, that this basic difference

becomes manifest because the (discursive) repression of negative emotions, in par-

ticular of shame, is more prevalent among right-wing populist supporters, whereas

these emotions tend to be acknowledged and socially shared within the left-wing

populist camp. We also suggest that these different emotion management strate-

gies—as distinct means of exploiting an EOS—have importantly dissimilar social

consequences: Repressed negative emotions about the self transform into anger,

resentment, and hatred against various out-groups, whereas their acknowledgment

Salmela and von Scheve 441

and sharing allow their transformation into anger and indignation toward particular

others perceived to be responsible for one’s (unfavorable) position. Secondly, we

suggest that the organizational culture and structure of right- and left-wing political

parties and movements are important factors regarding the repression and acknowl-

edgement of shame. Finally, we argue that the difference between repression and

acknowledgment also has implications for the emotional distancing from certain

social identities or their embracement.

Shame: Repressed versus Acknowledged and Shared

We suggest that many fears and insecurities that are linked to prevailing EOS in

contemporary societies contribute to producing actual or anticipated shame that—

when repressed—transforms into anger and resentment toward various “enemies” of

the self (see Scheff 1994; Turner 2007). Shame has been an “invisible” emotion in

studies of populism because it is rarely articulated by informants and interviewees in

empirical studies. Even so, we believe that it is a pivotal emotion of contemporary

societies where principles of competition and market exchange have spread from the

economy to all domains of life (Bauman 1998). Here, shame emerges as an emotion

about actual or anticipated losses for which individuals blame themselves. Antici-

patory shame, or shame-anxiety, may not be as intense as actual shame, but it

resembles the latter in its unpleasant hedonic quality and negative implications for

the self. This is because it signals an expected loss rather than a possible loss or

social exclusion (Miceli and Castelfranchi 2015; Neckel 1991). In general, the more

the domains of life in a society operate on the principles of competition and market

exchange, the more chances there are for failing to live up to the constitutive values

of one’s salient personal and social identities, and, consequently, for shame about

this actual or anticipated incapacity, and for the repression of shame.

As argued by Scheff (1994) and Turner (2007), the repression of shame can be

considered as part of a general EOS of modern (Western) societies, since shame is

seen and culturally framed as a deviant, despised, and socially undesirable and

therefore inexpressible emotion (as opposed to, e.g., the role of shame in some East

Asian societies, see Stodulka 2017). However, repressed shame does not disappear,

but persists, becomes more intensive, and transforms into anger, hate, and resent-

ment (e.g., Hoggett, Wilkinson, and Beedell 2013). The idea is that psychodynamic

processes change both the emotion type (from shame to anger, hate, and resentment)

and its intentional object (from self to other), with the purpose of protecting the

vulnerable self. This mechanism is similar to Scheler’s Ressentiment because the

repression and transmutation of negative emotions and a shift in their intentional

directedness are central to that concept as well.

Importantly, repression makes it difficult for the subject to recognize the contexts

in which shame emerged. Therefore, “the structures that originally generated neg-

ative emotional arousal are frequently not the targets of external attributions”

(Turner 2007:521, original italics). Another reason for the invisibility of eliciting

442 Humanity & Society 42(4)

structures is ideologies, such as competitive individualism, that justify the unequal

distribution of resources in different domains. When these ideologies are taken for

granted, the contribution of social structures to the shame-producing distribution of

resources remains mostly invisible. Turner (2007) remarks that once “shame is

repressed, it can be manipulated by those with an interest in deflecting this anger

onto chosen targets; typically this manipulation involves the symbols of one social

identity and juxtaposes this identity through narratives about the evils of another

social category or social identity” (pp. 521-22).

Repressed shame therefore constitutes a social mechanism that may mediate

between the EOS of contemporary societies on the one hand and support for

right-wing populist parties on the other hand. We suggest that the rhetoric of these

parties is carefully crafted (a) to contribute to the repression of shame and (b) to

deflect shame-induced anger and hatred away from the self and instead toward the

political and cultural establishment and various Others, such as immigrants, refu-

gees, and the long-term unemployed. This is why structural changes such as globa-

lization and economic liberalization—the actual causes of many of the events that

provoke individual shame—until recently received little attention from right-wing

populists who now seek to fight globalization by protectionism. Yet this blaming of

other countries and transnational organizations allows other aspects of contemporary

capitalism to get off easily or even receive support when figureheads such as Donald

Trump are voted for.

If the EOS of contemporary societies promote actual or anticipated shame across

borders, why do we not see right-wing populism succeed everywhere? One struc-

tural reason for possibly dissimilar dynamics of shame is that the austerity cuts

implemented in countries such as Greece and Spain were more radical and more

noticeable than those in Western and Northern European countries. The fact that

large segments of the population have been affected by austerity cuts in these

countries has probably given rise to a common awareness, reinforced by left-wing

populist slogans such as “We are the 99%,” that individual citizens cannot be blamed for losing their jobs, homes, or prospects of a secure life in consequence

of cuts to salaries, pensions, and public services (della Porta 2015; Gerbaudo 2017).

Protesters may thus be more likely to self-identify as aggrieved by neoliberal pol-

icies and to blame politics, politicians, and institutions perceived to be responsible

for the situation instead of blaming themselves (Simiti 2016). In Greece, mainstream

politicians wanted to blame the entire society for corruption that lead to the crisis

rather than blaming those elites who primarily benefited from the corruption, thus

producing anger among citizens (Xenakis and Cheliotis 2014). In contrast, citizens

in countries less affected by the financial crisis might face the consequences of

neoliberal globalization and their own vulnerability in more individualized terms,

which would contribute to each individual accepting more responsibility for his or

her actual or anticipated losses and precarious condition. This kind of responsibility

attribution is further supported by a neoliberal citizenship regime (Wacquant 2008).

Salmela and von Scheve 443

In this way, the proportion of citizens in a country affected by the consequences

of neoliberal politics, a corresponding public discourse, and tailored political

rhetoric can be important factors influencing whether shame is either acknowl-

edged or repressed or whether it is felt in the first place. For if others rather than the

self are blamed for demeaning and undeserved treatment, the resulting emotion

would be humiliation rather than shame. Yet, even if people had felt ashamed of

their situation, the rather large number of aggrieved citizens would likely have

supported the public acknowledgement of this emotion rather than its privatization

and repression. This is an important difference because the former type of shame

holds significant emancipatory potential as it allows individuals to identify and

establish bonds with others who feel the same for similar reasons. Here is Simiti’s

(2016) account on this process in the leftist camp of the Greek Aganaktismenoi

movement:

As well as articulating opinions, the participants shared their feelings of anger, con-

fusion and anxiety. Social interaction with even strangers was common. Since in the

Greek context problems like poverty, unemployment and private debt were experi-

enced by numerous and diverse social groups, they were openly discussed and debated.

Thus individual experiences were stripped of any moralistic discourse, individual

deficiency or failure and were transformed into shared social experience. (P. 41)

This sharing of experiences is likely to have contributed to the formation of a

collective identity among protesters. This collective identity, in turn, can facilitate

the transformation of individual shame into collective humiliation, anger, and indig-

nation that would allow the aggrieved—in conjunction with a corresponding rheto-

ric—to blame others perceived to be responsible for their precarious situation.

Arguably, citizens may have felt humiliation, anger, and indignation instead of

shame already at the outset of the crisis as they interpreted their losses and precar-

ization along with left-wing populist narratives associating their (anticipated) losses

with austerity politics and other societal changes implemented by unpopular gov-

ernments. For instance, supporters of Podemos have been characterized as a group of

highly skilled individuals with unfulfilled expectations “who, disappointed by the mix

of economic and political crises, are targeting their anger at both the government and

the mainstream opposition” (Ramiro and Gomez 2017:122). With some speculation,

these citizens who are younger, more educated, and ideologically more diverse than

the average left voter are less likely to blame themselves for their precarious situation

because they have accomplished a range of precautionary tasks to shield them from

these losses. With mass unemployment among younger generations, these individuals

may have, supported by the rhetoric of Podemos, experienced themselves as victims of

social or intergenerational injustice or both (Gerbaudo 2013, 2017). With both inter-

pretations, anger and indignation at those who have changed “the rules of the game”

would ensue rather than shame that targets the self.

444 Humanity & Society 42(4)

Organizational Culture and Structure

Given that the public acknowledgment and consequent social sharing of negative

emotions can be an important difference between right- and left-wing political

strategy and rhetoric, we suggest—this being our second difference—that the dis-

tinct organizational structures of the two types of populism contribute to different

intensities of sharing. Recent left-wing populism in Europe has emerged or been

invigorated by popular social movements with a rather horizontal, informal, open,

and networked structure rather than a vertical, formal, hierarchical, and representa-

tional structure that is common to both traditional parties and informal, yet typically

hierarchically structured, leader-centered right-wing populist parties (e.g., Gerbaudo

2013, 2017; Kioupkiolis 2016; Moffitt 2016). These parties prefer to emphasize their

origin in or even nature as social movements, even if they typically have no such

history or organizational structure. For instance, the German AfD does not originate

from the far-right social movement Pegida nor does it imitate the organizational

structure of Pegida, even if the party and social movement share nationalist and anti-

Islamist ideals and have recently collaborated (see www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/

2018-03/alternative-fuer-deutschland-pegida-kooperationsverbot-gekippt). The

relationship between the Greek Golden Dawn and right-wing extremist protesters

provides another example of a close association between a right-wing populist party

and an ideologically like-minded social movement. Yet, in terms of organization,

Golden Dawn is a traditional party rather than a hybrid incorporating features of a

social movement, and the same applies to other populist parties on the right.

The emphasis on horizontal, informal, and networked structure relates to the

demand for direct, participatory democracy that was particularly strong in the var-

ious Indignation and Occupy movements that coordinated their actions largely in the

digital networks of social media and made decisions in general assemblies (Ger-

baudo 2013, 2017). The left-wing populist parties that built their success on these

movements, Podemos and SYRIZA, have largely retained the ideal of open and

participatory democracy in spite of moving toward more vertical, representational,

and leader-centered forms of organization. Podemos, in particular, has adopted

participatory practices such as new technologies of grassroots engagement from

social movements to complement more traditional forms of political engagement

and action such as low-level communitarian gatherings (Kioupkiolis 2016; Ger-

baudo 2017). This “technopolitics” includes local and sectorial “circles” of members

and sympathizers who constitute a key node in the party organization as well as a

permanent online “agora,” in which party members can think and collaborate in the

making of common policies and ideas as well as vote on various issues. SYRIZA has

not promoted an analogous participation of citizens in the party and the formulation

of its policies. This may be due to its being founded as a coalition of diverse leftist

groups that never questioned the traditional form of the party. Yet, together, the

attempts of left-wing populists to foster networked, open, and participatory democ-

racy in the age of social media differ from the leader-driven social media strategies

Salmela and von Scheve 445

favored by right-wing populist politicians, which have included rhetorically inno-

vative blogs or Twitter messages of their (often charismatic) elite (Brubaker 2017).

The horizontal, open, and networked structure of left-wing social movements

and—to some extent—parties allows the participating individuals to share their

emotions and ideas in their communications and assemblies, both off- and online,

and to constitute a collective identity as aggrieved citizens who nevertheless are

empowered by their affective solidarity and collective political agency (Gerbaudo

2017). Certainly, protests and gatherings of right-wing populists also produce sol-

idarity through the sharing of negative emotions, in particular anger, anxiety, out-

rage, and indignation. However, these gatherings are far less frequent than among

left-wing populists, they do not (yet) belong to the key cultural practices of

right-wing supporters, and they rarely involve the sharing of identity threatening

individual emotions, rather capitalizing on the sharing of what we surmise to be

ressentiment-mediated negative emotions directed at out-groups. 3

For the left, public encampments at Puerta del Sol, Syntagma Square, or Zuccotti

Park provided beacons of action that offered on-site and ritualized experiences of

mutual solidarity and electrified wider communities that followed their events in live

broadcasts on social media (Gerbaudo 2013). We may surmise that this sense of

being part of unfolding joint action, either on site or through social media, contrib-

uted to shared experiences of joy, hope, and empowerment that helped those

involved to transform their low-energy, reactive emotions such as fear, anxiety, and

shame—insofar as they felt such emotions in the first place—into high-energy,

active emotions such as frustration, indignation, and anger frequently reported as

motives for left-wing activists’ struggle against the political establishment.

In this way, the emotional dynamics of left-wing populist movements and parties

resembles that of civil rights movements—black, women, gay, lesbian, and so on—

where the transformation of shame and humiliation into anger and pride has been an

essential element and condition of their success (e.g., Britt and Heise 2000; Gould

2009). Along with collective agency and joint actions of protest and struggle, pos-

itive emotions of joy and hope emerge. This also includes confidence in the possi-

bility of imminent rupture and change, all of which have been observed in the

context of left-wing political movements and parties such as Podemos, SYRIZA,

and the Venezuelan Chavismo (Gerbaudo 2013; Kioupkiolis 2016; Stavrakakis and

Katsambekis 2014; Simiti 2016). These positive emotions have been less prevalent

among right-wing populists. 4

This is unsurprising, given that their parties typically

operate in ways that resemble those of traditional parties whose members and

sympathizers do not act together on a regular basis even if right-wing populist parties

like to characterize themselves as social movements.

Emotional Distancing from or Embracing of Social Identities

Finally, we suggest that the difference between the repression and acknowledgement

of shame and other negative self-focused emotions has important implications for

446 Humanity & Society 42(4)

social identities. We argue that right-wing populism is associated with the emotional

distancing from those social identities that in contemporary societies frequently

evoke shame and other negative emotions (fear, powerlessness, worthlessness),

whereas left-wing populists embrace and seek to support those precarious identities

in spite of the negative emotions they generate.

Social identities that are linked to competitive market outcomes are particularly

shame-prone and therefore liable to alienation, especially for people occupying

precarious positions. 5

These identities include occupational identities which used

to be relatively stable (and thus were building blocks of status, recognition, and

honor) but have come under notable pressure over recent years (Bauman 1998; Beck

2000; Hochschild 2016; Sennett 2006). This is true for the occupational identities of

low- and medium-skilled blue-collar workers who have largely lost their trust in

trade unions as protectors of their interests as well as for white-collar workers whose

employers have faced increasing pressures to cut expenditures. Indeed, in flexible

labor markets where seamless working careers are rather the exception, it makes little

sense to develop strong emotional attachments to one occupational identity. Instead,

social identities that do not involve competition—such as nationality, ethnicity, lan-

guage, religion, and gender—become more attractive as sources of meaning, self-

esteem, and efficacy. These are also identities in which solidarity and belonging with

other group members can still be experienced in the framework of shared concerns,

emotions, meanings, and nostalgic recollections, unlike in the context of those social

identities where individuals tend to compete with everyone else.

The weakening of workers’ mutual solidarity and of the power of their trade

unions in conjunction with the precariousness of occupational identities therefore

tends to hamper the mobilization of the traditional left. Even more, it benefits the

populist right which attracts voters by repeatedly emphasizing the relevance and

gratification of allegedly “natural” and “stable” social identities. These identities are

discursively framed as less contingent and less demanding than identities based on a

combination of effort, dedication, and luck, such as having a professional career.

Taking pride in the ascriptive aspects of identity, such as ethnicity, nationality, or

gender—in general, what one already is or has—is far less demanding and compli-

cated than taking pride in what one has achieved, for the latter kind of pride requires

constant efforts with increasingly uncertain chances of success. Insofar as there is

competition at the group level, individuals can identify with their fellow group

members, for instance, national teams in sports, who are competing in the name

of the entire group. Stable social categories may become attractive as a kind of

bedrock onto which one can fall back if the other, more contingently rewarding

social identities fail to yield positive experiences in support of the self. This may

explain the popularity of right-wing populism both among the “losers” and some

“winners” of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. For those in disadvantaged posi-

tions, the appeal of stable social identities is obvious. But they can appeal also to

those who profit from globalization and economic liberalization because they are

aware of the precariousness of contemporary social life (Mols and Jetten 2016).

Salmela and von Scheve 447

Looking at the potential emotional distancing from social identities, we argue that

the transformation of acknowledged and shared shame and humiliation into anger,

resentment, and pride has important implications. In contrast to right-wing popu-

lism, left-wing populist parties have for a long time sought to politically and dis-

cursively strengthen and reinforce precarious identities. They generally advocate

vindicating the right to employment, housing, social protection, health, education,

the cancellation of unjust debt, and the end of austerity policies (Ivaldi, Lanzoni, and

Woods 2017; Kioupkiolis 2016). Relating to occupational identities in particular,

they support increases in minimum wage, the unionization of workers, bans of zero-

hour contracts, reduced working hours, paid family and sick leaves, paid vacation,

and so on (e.g., http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-workers-rights/ https://

openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/podemos-economic-proposals/). These policies aim

at protecting and nurturing precarious occupational identities of workers as well

as other identities whose successful maintenance depends on financial resources

raised from work. Insofar as voters support these policies and can stay encouraged

about their realization in spite of political uncertainties, we surmise that they have

less psychological incentives to find alternative identities for their sources of pride

and self-esteem.

On a more general account, the rise of populist parties and movements, both

right- and left-wing, can be associated with the increased relevance of identity

politics. Identity politics has been the means of various traditionally disadvantaged

or marginalized groups such as women, people of color, the disabled, and sexual

minorities to claim for and achieve recognition as citizens with equal rights in

contemporary democratic societies. The political left, including the populist left,

has in general engaged more thoroughly and substantially in this kind identity

politics than the right (e.g., Stavrakakis and Katsambekis 2014). Emphasizing the

principles of justice and equality, left-wing parties have campaigned for the recog-

nition and esteem of various marginalized identities, such as racial, gender, and

ethnic identities, seeking to transform the shame frequently associated with these

identities into pride and admiration. This is likely to have contributed to the accep-

tance of shame-prone identities that have become fragile and precarious only over

the past years, such as certain occupational identities, among the left.

Right-wing populism, in turn, has been seen as a backlash to identity politics and

the preferential treatment of traditionally disadvantaged or marginalized groups. For

instance, in Hochschild’s (2016) psychological deep story of Tea Party and Trump

supporters, members of these groups are identified as “line cutters” who are unfairly

granted resources and benefits that others perceive as becoming unattainable or

slipping away regardless of work and effort. It might be possible to blame right-

wing populists for ignoring other moral grounds of fair distribution besides work,

such as the principle of equal basic opportunities, and to praise left-wing populists

for recognizing such grounds. However, as social scientists, we are more interested

in the emphasis of work as the sole criterion of distributive justice in the populist

right narrative as it reveals the value of work for these people even if it has ceased to

448 Humanity & Society 42(4)

be the key to prosperity, security, and honor for them (Hochschild 2016). For this

shows that the increased salience of those social identities that right-wing populists

seek to protect—culture, religion, ethnicity, nationality—coincides with the precar-

ization of other important aspects of identity that relate to work and occupation.

Conclusions

This contribution aimed at addressing the question of why in recent years right-wing

populist parties and movements have garnered considerably more support in Europe

and many other countries than left-wing populist parties and movements, despite

being subjected to similar crises and challenges (e.g., the European debt crisis and

the migration crisis). To answer this question, we have introduced the concept of

EOSs to the study of emotions in populism and argued that contemporary societies

have given rise to particular EOS with some cultural and regional variations which

are reflected in populist narratives and strategies at exploiting these EOS. More

specifically, we have identified three principal differences in the emotional

dynamics of right- and left-wing political populism that we claim lie behind their

differentially constructed targets of anger and resentment: A political and economic

establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left), and political and cul-

tural elites accused of favoring various ethnic, religious, and sexual out-groups at the

expense of the neglected in-group (right).

Firstly, right-wing resentment at out-groups may be mediated by ressentiment—

the repression of negative self-focused emotions, particularly shame, and the trans-

formation of these emotions into anger, resentment, and hate at generic others—

whereas left-wing resentment may emerge from the acknowledgment and social

sharing of negative self-focused emotions, which allows and supports their trans-

formation into anger and indignation at particular others but also into pride, joy, and

hope similarly as in various civil rights movements.

Secondly, we proposed that differences in the organizational culture and structure

of right- and left-wing political movements and parties play an important role in

their dissimilar exploitation of EOS and the emotion management strategies they

(can) employ. The horizontal, open, and networked structure of left-wing social

movements and parties allows participants to share emotions and ideas in their

communications and assemblies and to constitute a collective identity as aggrieved

citizens, who are empowered by their affective solidarity and collective political

agency. By contrast, right-wing populist parties share a vertical, formal, hierarchical,

and representational structure with traditional parties even if they often characterize

themselves as social movements. Protests of right-wing populists also produce sol-

idarity through the sharing of negative emotions, even if protests do not belong to

key cultural practices of right-wing populism. However, they rarely involve the

sharing of identity threatening individual emotions rather capitalizing on negative

emotions directed at out-groups.

Salmela and von Scheve 449

Thirdly, we argued that the difference between repression and acknowledgement

of shame and other negative self-focused emotions has important implications for

social identities. Repression associates with emotional distancing from precarious

social identities tagged with negative emotions, whereas acknowledgment has no

such effect but rather associates—tallying the respective discourse—with embrace-

ment and support of such identities.

Although theoretical in nature, our article strongly draws on existing evidence

and should pave the way to empirically investigating our propositions. The argument

outlined in this contribution suggests a number of testable hypotheses that pertain to

associations between the experience of specific emotions, sociodemographic indi-

cators, voting behavior, and participation in right- and left-wing populist parties and

political or social movements. Admittedly, the more causal transformative mechan-

isms we suggest might be difficult to pin down, but longitudinal and/or cross-

national data could prove useful in approximating the effects we assume. Also,

in-depth interviews might contribute to revealing the emotional experiences that are

associated with support for right- and left-wing populist parties, respectively.

Finally, comparative studies may directly address some of the implied differences

between support for right- and left-wing populist parties and differences between

parties of either sort in different countries.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers of this article, the editors of the Human-

ity & Society special issue, and several commentators, at Mainstreaming Populism workshop,

University of Helsinki, on April 13, 2018; European Sociological Association 13th conference,

Athens, on August 29 to September 1, 2017; and International Society for Research on Emotion,

St. Louis, on July 25–28, 2017, for valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of

this article. Christian von Scheve also acknowledges the support of this research by the German

Research Foundation (DFG) within the SFB 1171 “Affective Societies.”

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,

and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the German Research

Foundation (DFG) within the SFB 1171 “Affective Societies.”

Notes

1. We focus on clear-cut and well-researched cases of left-wing populism such as Podemos

(Spain) and SYRIZA (Greece). The Italian moVimento 5 stelle (M5S) is more like a

synthesis of right- and left-wing populism (e.g., Ivaldi et al. 2017), and there is no research

on the new left-wing populist La France Insoumise that succeeded well in 2017 French

presidential elections.

450 Humanity & Society 42(4)

2. See Elster (1999) for the notion of emotional mechanism.

3. See the Vice News coverage of the Charlottesville, VA, alt-right gathering for the excep-

tionality of this kind of sharing among the radical populist right: https://news.vice.com/en_

us/article/qvzn8p/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror.

4. There is evidence on collective pride and joy felt in the encounters of right-wing populists

and extremists as well (e.g., Ahmed 2004). However, this pride may emerge from

repressed individual shame as it often shares features that Tracy and Robins (2004) have

associated with hubristic individual pride, namely, narcissistic self-aggrandizement and

antisocial behavior toward members of out-groups. Hubristic collective pride (Sullivan

2014) and collective narcissism (Golec de Zavala et al. 2009) have been associated with

prejudice and hostility toward out-groups; the latter also with low implicit group esteem.

Right-wing populist pride may then be a different kind of positive emotion than those

experienced by left-wing activists.

5. Theoretical support for the argument of emotional distancing from shame-prone social

identities comes from sociological identity theories. Stets and Burke (2005) argue that

when the self is evaluated as responsible for identity disruption, negative emotions such as

shame and embarrassment ensue. People try to change the meanings of situations in which

their identity is not verified in social interaction. However, if this is impossible, the theory

predicts that their identity standards and identities will change.

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