The politics of anger: emotional appraisal mechanisms and the French pension reform protests
以2020年法国养老金改革为案例，运用情绪评估理论解释愤怒情绪如何连接改革过程与抗议运动，揭示理性物质主义视角的不足，对理解情绪在政策制定中的作用有重要启示。
In this article, using the French pension reform in 2020 as a case, we demonstrate how a focus on emotions helps us to better understand important policy dynamics. While existing approaches of welfare state reform typically focus on rational-materialist and institutionalist approaches, we use appraisal theory of emotion to explain how the reform project and process on the one hand and interest group behaviour and protest on the other are linked via a mechanism of anger. Material interests of different groups of citizens and trade unions clearly matter, but they cannot sufficiently explain the process through which disagreement could erupt in one of the largest and longest protest movements in recent French history. Theoretically integrating material interests and moral reasoning and using a variety of qualitative and public opinion data, we trace the escalation of conflict between key actors which ultimately impeded a comprehensive reform in 2020. Our findings have important implications for research on the role of emotions in policymaking.