PhD defence K. (Kjell) Noordzij

Summary:

In liberal democracies, many citizens are discontented with politicians. Less-educated citizens in particular have little trust in politics, tend not to participate in elections, or give their support to populist parties. How can this be understood? This dissertation adds a novel relational approach to the study of less-educated citizens’ political discontent. The argument is made that many less-educated citizens perceive politicians to be distant to their life-world and feel looked down on by them. The role of such a perceived cultural distance in less-educated citizens’ political discontent and its wider implications are tested empirically using a multi-methods approach, which includes in-depth group interviews, a tailor-made survey, and video-vignette survey experiments. Perceived cultural distance to politicians experienced by less-educated citizens is found to inspire a wide range of political discontents over and above conventional explanations, and has far-reaching consequences for the functioning of democracy.