Epidemija COVID-19 v Sloveniji, odnos do neenakosti in protestni potencial

The article presents the results of the Slovenian Public Opinion survey conducted just before the outbreak and during the first and second waves of the epidemic. In this article, we are interested in the impact of perceptions and evaluations of social inequalities on citizens’ protest participation. More specifically, we are interested in how these perceptions relate to the actual situation of individuals and how the interaction of the two contributes to the dissatisfaction that manifests itself as a willingness to protest. We take as our starting point the theory of relative deprivation, which proves to be relevant in explaining the occurrence of protests in times of crisis. The results of the study confirm the relevance of the theory especially in times of crisis or in the case of unannounced and sudden outbreaks of resentment, when the usual explanatory models of political action are not sufficient. The results show that the main trigger of collective action is not absolute distress, but that protest behaviour can be the result of a relative degree of deprivation in a social group. Therefore, the discrepancy between specific and legitimate expectations for a particular social group (in terms of norms, living standards and social status) and the assessment of whether these expectations are met is important.V članku so predstavljene ugotovitve raziskav Slovensko javno mnenje, ki so bile izvedene tik pred začetkom epidemije ter v prvem in drugem valu epidemije. V članku nas zanima vpliv percepcije in vrednotenja družbenih neenakosti na protestno participacijo državljanov. Bolj konkretno: zanima nas, kako se te zaznave povezujejo z dejanskim položajem posameznikov in kako součinkovanje obojega prispeva k nezadovoljstvu, ki se kaže kot pripravljenost na proteste. Izhajamo iz teorije relativne deprivacije, ki se kaže kot relevantna za pojasnjevanje pojavljanja protestov v kriznih časih. Rezultati raziskave potrjujejo relevantnost teorije še posebej v času krize oziroma nenapovedanega in nenadnega izbruha zamere, ko običajni pojasnjevalni modeli političnega delovanja ne zadoščajo. Izkaže se, da bistven sprožilec kolektivnega ravnanja pri tem ni absolutna stiska, ampak je lahko protestno ravnanje posledica relativne stopnje deprivacije v posamezni družbeni skupini. Pomembna je diskrepanca med specifičnimi in za posamezno socialno skupino legitimnimi pričakovanji (glede norm, življenjskega standarda in družbenega položaja) ter ocenami o tem, ali se bodo ta pričakovanja uresničila