Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance: D1.1 First Needs Analysis Report

The ‘First Needs Analysis Report’ provides an overview of the recent scholarship on the issues of grievance-driven, emotional politics. In recent years, this sphere of research has been developing with increasing intensity and conceptual, analytical, and methodological innovation. The report identifies central scholarly trends and findings, and emerging methodological and empirical challenges.

The analytical frames, theories and concepts employed by the scholarship on emotional and grievance politics often focus on demand and supply side drivers and would benefit from an additional engagement with interactive effects, feedback loops and concepts that allow for recognizing and engaging with a richer understanding of emotions, emotional clusters, and emotional mechanisms. 

Methodological challenges faced by the scholarship on grievance politics arise from its association with various methods, disciplines, and the complexity (as well as diversity) of concept operationalization. The ongoing evolution of the forms taken by ressentiment and emotional politics leads to a constant rethink of the conceptual frameworks and operationalization processes. By identifying these methodological and conceptual challenges, this report suggests developing an integrated analytical and conceptual framework that could enable cross-country research and be flexible for employment in the context of qualitative and quantitative methods. This new framework will allow PLEDGE to analyse the value of emotionality in the policy processes, recognize in grievance politics the strongly felt emotional needs and demands of citizens and groups, and identify mechanisms of emotional signals to facilitate the integration of emotional politics into policymaking processes. 

Future policy implications in emotional and grievance politics relate to the challenges of developing effective communication strategies with the voters. These strategies will provide opportunities to reinforce representative relationships through the reliance on democratic design and allow policymakers to strengthen their communication by moving away from negative associations of emotional politics and harnessing their potential for political mobilization in the pursuit of pro-social and pro-democratic objectives and future.