Blame and contention

How perceptions of the government’s role in the economic crisis shape patterns of political action

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9537528
AutoresMaurizio Giugni (0000-0001-7210-339X, University of Geneva, autor de correspondencia), Marco Giugni, M Grasso (0000-0002-6911-2241, University of Sheffield), Maria T Grasso
Año2019
Volumen54
Número3
Páginas346-370
Fecha de publicación2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaActa Politica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416
EditorialSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/s41269-017-0073-x
OpenAlexW2773066944
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas22
Referencias citadas55

In this paper we analyse the extent to which perceptions of the government’s role in the economic crisis impacted on the political behaviour of European citizens. This includes contentious political activities such as attending public meetings, participating in demonstrations, and joining strikes, but also electoral behaviour in the form of voting against the incumbent. We examine data from 2015 since it allows us to examine European nations experiencing different economic conditions as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent period of recession. We find that individuals who blamed the national government for the economic crisis and who were more unsatisfied with the government’s handling of unemployment were more likely to participate. However, the effect of these variables varied across different forms of political behaviour. Moreover, the study provides evidence that the effect of the perceptions of one’s own economic situation on political behaviour is conditional upon the perceptions people have of the way in which the government is dealing with the situation, and specifically with unemployment, a key marker of the extent of the negative effects of the economic crisis across European nations

Blame · Comparative politics · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Perception · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Recession · Unemployment · Voting · Voting behavior · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Psychology · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Social Psychology