Politicians' high-status signals make less-educated citizens more supportive of aggression against government: A video-vignette survey experiment.

Various branches of the literature suggest that exposure to the high-status appearances and lifestyles of politicians in contemporary "diploma democracies" affects the attitudes and behavior of less-educated citizens because it confronts them with their lower status in the political domain. Informed by this, we theorize that such exposure inspires docility (a lower subjective social status, weaker feelings of political entitlement) and revolt (anger, more support for aggression against government). To investigate this, we conducted an original, pre-registered, video-vignette survey experiment among a representative sample of the Dutch population.

A revolt of the deplored? The role of perceived cultural distance in the educational gradient in anti-establishment politics.

Anti-establishment politics have become part of contemporary Western democracies. Less-educated citizens in particular have been found to display political distrust and populist attitudes, support populist parties, and abstain from voting. We advance a novel explanation for these patterns, drawing on extant theoretical insights to hypothesize that less- and more-educated citizens differ in the extent to which they perceive politicians to be culturally distant to them.

Dutch COVID-19 lockdown measures increased trust in government and trust in science: A difference-in-differences analysis.

Many governments have implemented strict lockdown measures to prevent the transmission of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Compliance with these restrictions is vital and depends greatly on the level of trust in the institutions central to their development and implementation. The objectives of this study were to assess: (1) the effects of the Dutch lockdown measures imposed in March 2020 on trust in government and trust in science; and (2) whether these differ across social groups.

"They don't know what it's like to be at the bottom": Exploring the role of perceived cultural distance in less-educated citizens' discontent with politicians.

Why is discontent with politicians highest among less-educated citizens? Supplementing explanations concerning a lack of resources and knowledge, we examine the cultural distance to many a politician perceived by this group. Inspired by qualitative studies mapping the worldviews of people from the lower social strata, we explore less-educated citizens' perceptions of politicians using in-depth (group) interviews carried out in various regions of the Netherlands (n = 26). Our analysis indicates that this group regards politicians as culturally distant "others" and that this perception goes hand in hand with specific negative evaluations of politicians.