Democracy under siege? Parties, voters, and elections after the great recession

For the worlds democracies, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 was catalyst for the most precipitous economic downturn in eight decades. This book examines how the GFC and ensuing Great Recession affected the workings of mass politics in the established democracies. The initial wave of research on the crisis concluded it did little to change the established relationships between voters, parties, and elections. Yet, nearly a decade since the initial shock, we are witnessing a wave of political changes, the extent to which has not been fully explained by existing studies. How did the economic malaise bear on the political preferences of citizens? This book pushes against the received wisdom by advancing a framework for understanding citizen attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. We make two main claims. First, while previous studies of the GFC tend to focus on an immediate impact of the crisis, we argue that economic malaise had a long-lasting impact. In addition to economic shock, we emphasize that economic recovery has a significant impact on citizens assessment of political elites. Second, we argue that unanticipated exogenous shocks like the GFC grant party elites an opening for political manoeuvre through public policy and rhetoric. As a result, political elites have a high degree of agency to shape public perceptions and behaviour. Political parties can strategically moderate citizens economic uncertainty, mobilize/demobilize voters, and alter individuals political preferences. By leveraging data from over 150,000 individuals across over 100 nationally representative post-election surveys from the 1990s to 2017, this book tests these research claims across a range of outcomes, including economic perceptions, policy demands, political participation, and the vote.