Great Recession: Effect on Parties and Protest

Session Submission Type: Full Submitted Panel

Session Description

Economic crises and breakdowns challenge the status quo. The disruption and stress that societies experience during the times of crises dispute the existing socio-political order. Economic crisis can thus turn into a legitimacy crisis (della Porta 2014). Some worry that the crisis of legitimacy could bring a growth of radical and anti-democratic forces; others see it as an opportunity for a renewal of democracy. The Great Recession that started in 2008 decreased people’s trust in politics, mobilized anti-austerity protests, brought a considerable electoral defeat of incumbent parties, and contributed to the growth of new parties including populist radical right parties.

The panel examines further the political effects of the Great Recession. It focuses on the reactions of political actors and examines two main political arenas – party and protest politics. A particular attention is given to the examination of the exceptional character of the Great Recession as a “crisis” period. Did the Great Recession bring effects that are qualitatively different from influences of economic decline in normal times? How does the dynamics of political processes look during this critical time? The individual papers examine whether the Great Recession was a structural break causing major and long-term political changes (e.g. major shifts in parties’ ideology and policies, examination of how people’s economic preferences changed) and analyze political processes triggered by the Great recession that are normally absent or smaller (e.g. political activation of poor people, who are normally not much involved in politics, or a greater connection between usually more separated protest and party arenas). In addition, the panel examines the effects of the Great Recession comparatively across Western democracies. The scope of how the economic problems connected to the Great Recession affected individual countries varies and the existing socio-political conditions, which are different across countries, also influenced the effects of the recession. The individual papers thus explore a conditioning role of the severity of economic problems, the level of their politicization, the role of party systems’ structure, etc.

Specifically, the papers ask: What consequences did the economic crisis have for parties’ ideological positions? How responsive were parties to their voters’ preferences regarding the role that the state should play in the economy? What is the connection between electoral punishment of incumbent parties and anti-austerity protests? Under what conditions does the lack of socio-economic resources mobilize people to protest? The papers on this panel combine longitudinal and cross-country comparative research and use a variety of data (electoral data, party manifestos, comparative individual surveys) to answer these questions. The first two papers examine policies and ideologies of political parties. Steffen Blings and his colleagues focus on how the parties’ ideological positions changed after the crisis. They show that the economic crisis led to major structural breaks in parties’ ideological positions and enabled the emergence of new left-wing parties. Denise Traber explores the mechanism of this change and examines responsiveness of parties’ economic policies to their voters’ preferences during the Great Recession. Katerina Vráblíková shows that the economic crisis triggers protest of socio-economically deprived people thanks to increased saliency and politicization of economic problems in national politics. In the final paper by Bjoern Bremer and his colleagues, the dynamics of party and protest politics during the Great Recession is connected. Their paper examines how the punishment of incumbent parties is related to the volume of protest and analyzes the dependency of this this connection on varying country conditions.

della Porta, Donatella. 2014. Social Movements in Times of Austerity. Bringing Capitalism Back In. Polity Press.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 11: COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Individual Presentations

• Party Crashers: The Determinants of Left Party Ideological Shifts - Steffen Blings, Oberlin College; Stephen Craig Nelson, Northwestern University; Christopher Way, Cornell University

• The role of the state in the economy: voters and parties during Economic crisis - Denise Traber, University of Zurich

• Economic hardship, politicization and protest in Western Democracies - Katerina Vrablikova, The Ohio State University

• Two Worlds of Dissatisfaction?Electoral Punishment and Protest Politics Compared - Bjoern Kristen Bremer, European University Institute; Swen Hutter; Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Zurich

Chair

• Christopher Wlezien University of Texas at Austin

Discussant

• Herbert Kitschelt Duke University