Measuring Cultural Discontent

• In Event: Attitudes Toward Social Groups

Abstract

Recent studies have persuasively argued that cultural backlash is responsible for the recent global surge of populism. Yet, virtually none of these studies actually measure backlash: instead the measure specific attitudes (e.g. opposition to immigration, racial resentment, Islamophobia, etc.). As a result, current research cannot precisely identify the effects of backlash, as it is thoroughly intermingled with ethnocentrism and other ideations that are associated with the political right. In this paper, we develop a new measure of cultural discontent (of which nativist backlash is a subtype) that does not include content from any specific ideology. Using an experiment from the US and an observational survey from Spain, we analyze the measure’s validity across national contexts and its relationship to ideology and partisanship. We show that cultural backlash is not limited to the right: the rise of nativism and ethno-nationalism has triggered a new form of discontent among left-leaning individuals who recoil at the normalization of racism and xenophobia. This paper challenges the notion that cultural discontent is exclusively a right-wing phenomena, and provides a valuable conceptual research for future analyses of the causes and consequences of populism.

Authors

• Rachel Navarre, Bridgewater State University

• Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, Clemson University

• Stephen Michael Utych, Boise State University