The 2010s have been described by some as the age of discontent (Rhodes-Purdy et al. 2023). Not only did mass political and anti-government protests erupt throughout the decade, but a clear change in electoral behaviour was also witnessed in most western liberal democracies, including in the Nordic region (Florida 2021; Berman 2021; Palonen and Sunnercrantz 2021, Meinander 2021).
While voter turnout continued to decline throughout that decade in the West, it is the significant rise in votes cast for non-traditional and in some cases new parties that is often referred to as the most distinct expression of political discontent of that period (Rodríguez-Pose 2020; Solijonov 2016). The root causes and drivers of that anti-government sentiment appear to be multiple and complex; indeed, they are a source of debate among scholars, including as to whether and how they are leading to “geographies of discontent” in certain regions.
This paper summarises that debate and serves as a conceptual overview of the topic in order to provide a better understanding of what factors, or combination of factors, are driving discontent and geographies of discontent in the western liberal democracies. After discussing the phenomena at large, this paper then zooms in on the Nordic region specifically and describes significant factors potentially driving geographies of discontent in the region.