Voicing Outrage Unevenly: Democratic Dissatisfaction, Nonparticipation, and Participation Frequency in the 15-M Campaign

Abstract

This article explores frequencies of participation and nonparticipation in the 15-M protest campaign in Spain. Given the nature of this campaign, we focus on democratic dissatisfaction. Our findings suggest that, relative to nonparticipants, democratic dissatisfaction is significantly associated with multiple-time participation, but not with one-time participation. In other words, those who participated only once are not substantially more dissatisfied than those who did not participate. This is remarkable because the “indignados” label and the slogan “Real Democracy Now!” suggest that democratic discontent is a central factor uniting 15-M challengers. Relying on a general survey with questions on different frequencies of participation in the 15-M campaign and on qualitative evidence from two separate rounds of interviewing, we show that not all those who participated, when compared to nonparticipants, were in fact that outraged.