I would consider "radical discontent" to be an attitude. Attitudes originate from the interplay of perceptions of the environment and criteria for judging the environment. But why should any of these two be influenced depending on the "psychology of discontent" as discussed?<br> Isn't it more plausible that the "psychology of discontent" determines the means radically discontent citizens choose in reaction to their radical discontent? (Based on how I would conceptualize radical discontent I would thus also disagree with the statement that " radical discontent is characterized by verbal or physical aggression"). In this vein, many of your elaborations further below indeed concern the choice of tactics among dominance-oriented individuals (and not disaffection as an attitude). Also, most of the empirical evidence you cite (and that you generate) seem to investigate particular behaviors and tactics. Altogether, if I understand you correctly then your theoretical proposition is that dominance-based orientations fuels radical discontent (eg, p. 4, 13) but wouldn't it be more in line with your argument to (only) posit that radical forms of activism follow from dominance-based strategies? (In the empirical analysis, extreme discontent is then also not the dependent variable). In other words, it is not so much about radical discontent as an attitude but about radical political behavior?

This adjustment takes nothing away from the study and - with an eye on your empirical sections - it is likely what you have had in mind anyways. I was just thinking about these questions while reading the paper.

these cites seem not to refer to populism per se but to a particular sub type of populism: support for right wing populist parties. In this vein, it is unclear whether the correlation with traditionalism or authoritarianism are linked to populism or to a right-wing outlook on politics. (Aside: why are authoritarian inclinations in stark contrast to dominance motivations?)

my hunch would be that populism and discontent would be even more distinct if populism was operationalized in a Goertzian fashion using the minimum the aggregate the subcomponents.

very interesting.

great plot

Thanks for the cite :) I this it can be cited as "2020". Should be out in the coming days (knock wood). DOI will then be https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123420000149

It is somewhat unfortuntely that we only have data from 1980s onwards bc I believe to remember that Dalton (citizen politics) had shown that a substantial part of the decline already occured before that point but I guess there is nothing we can do about it (unless you would consider to consider including single election studies or single surveys).

Are the empirical findings reported here consistent with those reported here or how can we explain the inconsistencies? https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/81/3/748/3858932

Central / Eastern and Western Europe: Individual country are hard to read (their trajectory). This is unfortunately bc on the level of individual countries there is considerable dynamics - as I see it.

However, how to interpret these dynamics is not clear to me. Unfortunately (my central suggestion to you), you current pre-print does not say much about absolute levels and practical relevance (or I have overread it which is very well possible). To begin with, I did not understand how to interpret the end point of the scales (-2, 1). Are these the absolute end points of the empirical distribution and how are they attitudes distributed anyway? Again, maybe I have overread it but for me these things would be useful or necessary to judge practical significance. (also, one might draw analogies to the dynamics in other attitudes over time to understand whether trust is more or less volatile than X, Y). Somewhat related: Unfortunately, we had to take it out of our paper due to space limitations but what I found notable with respect to trust is how LOW the absolut levels are. Not sure if you can actually interpret this with your new method but mean values are often below the mid-point of the scale. I actually find this as noteworthy as the dynamics even though we also missed to properly discuss it, I think.

Great section. Cannot judge all decision but at least it leaves the reader with the impression that you've really thought the many of the small and difficult analytical choices you had to make when setting up the model. Also, this review of recent state of the art literature is really useful as a source on its own!

I find it remarkable how the author go beyond demonstrating the presence of an effect to also give the readers a sense for the size of these effects and their practical relevance

You are probably already aware of it. Nonetheless, I'll mention that formal equivalence testing might also be an appropriate strategy here tha is similar but differs slightly in the conclusions you can draw, see https://github.com/Lakens/TOSTER Alex

reminds me of the Matthes Scale

Diesem Manuskript scheint grundsätzlich ein teleologisches Verständnis zu Grunde zu liegen. Aus diesem "Ziel" von Dialog und dem Erreichen oder Nicht-Erreichen dieses Ziel scheinen sich dann die in der Intr. angesprochenen normativen Implikationen ("good" / "bad") zu ergeben. An dieser Stelle frage ich mich als Leser, was genau dieses Ziel ist. Dies wird implizit angesprochen, eine direkte Auseinandersetzung damit, welches (normativ oder wie auch immer begründete) Ziel verfolgt wird könnte man direkt zu Beginn noch stärker herausarbeiten.