Fierce but short-lived: how does economic crisis affect political participation?

The Great Recession that hit Europe in 2008 led to the loss of millions of jobs and soaring levels of unemployment. In a recent study, Anna Kern, Sofie Marien and Marc Hooghe investigate whether the recent crisis depresses or boosts levels of political participation in Europe. They find that economic growth is positively associated with elite challenging forms of political participation such as protests or boycotts when investigating a longer period (2002-2010) but that crises such as between 2008 and 2010 rising unemployment came along with rising levels of such acts of political participation.