Political Action and Resentful Affectivity in Critical Times

How does the study of emotions help us understand engaging in or abstaining from  violent and illegal political behaviors in the context of the Eurozone economic crisis?This question sits at the core of our article. We focus particularly on anger, fear, and hope hypothesizing that combined with perceptions of self-efficacy, these emotions fuse in complex affective blends of resentful or ressentiment-ful affectivity, which in turn determine the path of citizens’ political engagement. We test this using data from a three-wave cross-sectional survey from Greece, which contains measures of emotions and unique items of engagement with illegal and violent political actions.