Hot Reaction: Affect and Values as Determinants of Illegal and Violent Political Actions

In this paper we investigate the role of affect and values as determinants of reactionary illegal and violent political actions. Political reaction is a complex political orientation of feeling overwhelmed by the present and wanting to return to the past (Capelos, Katsanidou, Demertzis, 2017). It is stimulated and is responsive to ‘anti’ narratives promoted by populist discourses from the left and the right in times of crisis. Here we examine the psychological process of reaction, by which political frustrations are either acted out in the form of illegal and violent political actions, or expressed as their dormant support. We use data from seven focus groups conducted between January 2014 and April 2015 in Greece during the financial crisis, which explore participants’ individual emotionality and reasoning as well as group processes and collective emotions. Our qualitative data allow for rich conceptualizations and operationalisations of the motivational, affective and cognitive drivers of violent political reaction. Our findings extend theoretical and empirical work in the field and shed light on the black box of the drivers of political reaction.