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The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Voicing outrage unevenly: Democratic dissatisfaction, nonparticipation, and participation frequency in the 15-M campaign

Martín Portos and Juan Masullo

This article explores frequencies of participation and nonparticipation in the 15-M protest campaign in Spain.

Type: Journal Article
Year: 2017

This article explores frequencies of participation and nonparticipation in the 15-M protest campaign in Spain. Given the nature of this campaign, we focus on democratic dissatisfaction. Our findings suggest that, relative to nonparticipants, democratic dissatisfaction is significantly associated with multiple-time participation, but not with one-time participation. In other words, those who participated only once are not substantially more dissatisfied than those who did not participate. This is remarkable because the “indignados” label and the slogan “Real Democracy Now!” suggest that democratic discontent is a central factor uniting 15-M challengers. Relying on a general survey with questions on different frequencies of participation in the 15-M campaign and on qualitative evidence from two separate rounds of interviewing, we show that not all those who participated, when compared to nonparticipants, were in fact that outraged.

Portos, M. , Masullo, J. (2017). Voicing outrage unevenly: Democratic dissatisfaction, nonparticipation, and participation frequency in the 15-M campaign. Mobilization: An International Quarterly: June 2017, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 201-222.

http://mobilizationjournal.org/doi/abs/10.17813/1086-671X-22-2-201?code=hjdm-site

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