Exploring Protest in Europe with a Multi-Level Cross-National Test of the Structural Cognitive Model

Abstract To explain protest potential, the Structural Cognitive Model (SCM) suggests (i) a multi-level interaction between economic and political contexts (“structure”) and individual-level social psychological factors (“cognitive”) such that (ii) macro-level factors can amplify or dampen individual and group protest potential. This model has few cross-national tests because many of the cognitive concepts it suggests are not available in the major international survey projects. This paper explores the possibilities to test SCM with the European Values Study (33 countries, 2017–2018). I explain protest potential as a result of, at the macro level, economic inequality and the degree to which the Political Opportunity Structure is open or closed. Individual-level factors include economic structural disadvantage and being both politically interested and organizationally embedded. Cognitive factors include external political efficacy and internal social efficacy. I find that external political efficacy is sensitive to the political context and internal social efficacy is not. These results suggest that, to test SCM, the distinction between external political efficacy and internal social efficacy is essential because they have different relationships with the economic and political contexts. Overall, I find that the European Values Study can be used to explore SCM in cross-national perspective.