Geography of discontent

Background and Objective

According to the public and political debate, social cohesion appears to be increasingly fragile and democracy is at risk. Processes of polarisation and radicalisation in society are expressed in anti-democratic protest movements and the success of populist and extremist parties. In this context, socio-geographical differences are being thematised in academia. The focus here is on the question of whether the stability and acceptance of democracy is more at risk in structurally weak and peripheral rural areas than in prosperous and (metropolitan) regions. In the academic debate, this is referred to as a "geography of discontent" or - somewhat more strikingly - as the "revenge of insignificant places" (Rodríguez-Pose).
There is now a broad, theoretically and empirically sound literature on this topic. What has been lacking to date, however, is a systematic overview that collates and analyses the findings of the methodologically and spatially very different studies.

Approach

The project involves a systematic literature review.

In a first step, we summarise the findings of the sociological and geographical literature on the topic of the "geography of discontent".

Building on this, we will prepare recommendations for political action identified in the literature that aim to strengthen regional and social cohesion in rural areas.

Data and Methods

Systematic literature review

Our Research Questions

1) What scientific findings are there on a "geography of discontent"?

2) What measures can be derived on this basis for a policy for rural areas?