Politics of resentment
The politics of resentment, sometimes called grievance politics, describes strategies that convert perceived injustices into collective claims that can reorder party systems when globalization, demographic change, or state restructuring unsettle expectations, then channels them toward a concrete outgroup or elite. Researchers distinguish multiple channels through which actors translate anger into policy agendas, allowing analysts to compare movements across regions and election cycles. It is not confined to any one ideology or geography. It can be fused with populism, nationalism, cultural conservatism, or left protest. Scholars now treat it as an identifiable mode of political communication and organization with distinct psychological, sociological, and territorial drivers.
Historical development
Political theorists trace the language of ressentiment to classical debates about moral injury and retaliation. Friedrich Nietzsche's genealogy of morality argued that lingering resentment stabilized counter-elite moralities in late antiquity, offering an early account of how wounded status claims become collective political projects. Max Scheler later expanded the concept to modern mass societies, describing ressentiment as a long-term psychic state that elites and counter-elites mobilize when hierarchies appear immovable.Comparative historians identify recurring cycles of grievance-driven mobilization stretching from early modern Europe's urban guild protests to anti-colonial revolts and twentieth-century populisms. Recent scholarship links these legacies to contemporary nationalist and religious movements that frame perceived cultural humiliation as a call for democratic renovation.
Plague of Justinian
The Plague of Justinian generated significant grievance politics in the Byzantine Empire as the pandemic killed an estimated 25-50% of the population. The plague's impact was particularly severe among urban poor and rural peasants who lacked resources to flee infected areas, while wealthy elites could retreat to country estates. This disparity intensified existing resentment toward Constantinople's centralized authority. Local populations were outraged that imperial tax collectors continued demanding the full annona and chrysargyron, even as agricultural production plummeted and commerce ground to a halt. Emperor Justinian's refusal to reduce the standard tax assessment on land, or suspend his costly building programs and military campaigns, sparked widespread anger. His 542 CE edict attempting to control wage inflation by capping laborers' pay at pre-plague levels, despite severe worker shortages, further inflamed tensions.Religious grievances also emerged as different Christian factions interpreted the plague as divine punishment for their rivals' theological positions. Monophysite Christians in Egypt and Syria viewed the plague as judgment against Chalcedonian orthodoxy, while orthodox believers blamed religious dissent for bringing God's wrath. These grievance narratives contributed to weakening imperial authority and deepening sectarian divisions across the empire, demonstrating how black swan events act as a catalyst to activate and reshape existing patterns of social resentment.
Pre-Revolutionary France
In pre-revolutionary France, grievance politics emerged through institutionalized channels of complaint called cahiers de doléances, where the three estates documented their grievances against the monarchy and each other. The Third Estate's grievances centered on inequitable taxation, aristocratic privilege, and blocked social mobility, while the nobility expressed resentment over royal centralization and loss of traditional authority.Urban intellectuals and professionals developed sophisticated critiques of aristocratic privilege through Enlightenment discourse networks and salon culture. Their grievances focused on merit-based advancement, rational administration, and constitutional limits on royal power. Meanwhile, peasant grievances centered on seigneurial dues, ecclesiastical tithes, and tax burdens, expressed through both formal petitions and periodic revolts.
The convergence of these multi-layered resentments, intellectual, professional, and agrarian, created what historian François Furet called a "cascade of grievances" that delegitimized the old regime. When fiscal crisis forced the monarchy to convene the Estates General of 1789, these long-cultivated grievance narratives provided ready-made frames for revolutionary mobilization.
Contemporary United States
Field studies and survey experiments show that status threat and perceived distributive unfairness remain central to grievance politics in the United States. Researchers find that narratives of cultural displacement and partisan animus have reshaped party coalitions, motivating turnout and policy stances on trade, immigration, and social welfare.First-party public opinion research reveals deep dissatisfaction with the U.S. political system, with only 4% saying it works very well and 63% expressing little to no confidence in its future. Trust in federal government stands at historic lows of 16%, while growing shares view both major parties unfavorably. This widespread disillusionment manifests in electoral dynamics, with 63% dissatisfied with emerging presidential candidates and only 26% rating the overall quality of political candidates positively, a 20 point decline since 2018. These sentiments fuel grievance-based appeals in campaign messaging and grassroots fundraising across the political spectrum.