Tough or Tender: which political orientations explain support for extreme and violent politics

We examine support for political violence by five distinct political orientations: radical, reactionary, progressive, retrogressive and conservative. Radical and reactionary orientations denote the urgent desire for overturning the status quo, but differ in direction of the desired change, forward versus backwards. Progressive and retrogressive orientations share an appetite for gradual change but split in their direction preference, while conservative orientations seek to maintain the status quo. We employ a novel empirical operationalization that distinguishes these orientations and we examine their behavioural manifestations as active and dormant support for violence, extreme and anomic behaviour. We analyse the content of citizen statements during the 2015 financial crisis in Greece extracted from five focus group transcripts. Distinguishing theoretically and empirically the backward gaze of reactionary and retrogressive orientations from the forward aim of radical and progressive orientations, we unpack their disposition to violence, and compare their appetite to political action and inaction. We find that reactionary and radical stances predict engagement with violence but with different aims, while retrogressive stances, marked by resentful affect, favour passive rather than active support for political violence.