Being denied and granted social welfare and the propensity to protest

Abstract

The article examines the effects that positive and negative experiences with applying for social welfare have on the individual’s propensity to protest. We investigate how being denied or granted social benefits or services as well as the interaction of these two experiences influences self-reported prospective protest behaviour. We also explore the moderating role of one’s financial situation on these effects. Referring to the scholarship on protest motivations and emotions as well as on policy feedback, we hypothesise that receiving social welfare might have a different impact on the propensity to protest, depending on the other experiences people have had with the welfare state. In order to verify the hypotheses, we use survey data from nine European countries, gathered within the LIVEWHAT project. One of the major findings is that, although both being denied and being granted benefits or service positively affect the propensity to protest, the experience of receiving benefits moderates the impact of being denied benefit/service on prospective protesting among those living in poverty.