Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Electoral Politics
This book examines the domestic electoral consequences of the economic and financial crisis in Europe, particularly in those countries where the crisis manifested itself more devastatingly: the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, as well as Iceland and Ireland. On the surface, the electoral consequences of the crisis seem largely similar, having resulted, in these countries, in large electoral losses for incumbents, as the most elementary versions of economic voting theory would have us expect. However, behind this fundamental similarity, important differences emerge. Whilst in some cases, on the basis of post-election surveys, it is possible to see that the crisis elections followed a previous pattern of performance-oriented voters, with no major changes either in known predictors of electoral choices or in basic party system properties, other elections brought the emergence of new parties, new issues and cleavages, altering patterns of political competition.
By examining these different outcomes and comparing the crisis elections with previous ones, this book takes into account their timing relative to different stages of crisis. It also scrutinises party strategies and campaign dynamics, particularly as governments attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in framing events and proposals so as to deflect responsibility for economic outcomes.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.
Pedro C. Magalhes is Principal Researcher in the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests include public opinion, voting behaviour, political attitudes, and judicial politics.
Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Electoral Politics
European Voter Responses to the Global Economic Collapse 20092013
Edited by
Pedro C. Magalhes
First published 2015
by Routledge
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2015 Elections, Public Opinions and Parties (EPOP)
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Contents
Pedro C. Magalhes
Indridi H. Indridason
Michael Marsh & Slava Mikhaylov
Pedro C. Magalhes
Mariano Torcal
Eftichia Teperoglou & Emmanouil Tsatsanis
Paolo Bellucci
The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Electoral Politics
Pedro C. Magalhes
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 125133
Chapter 2
The Collapse: Economic Considerations in Vote Choice in Iceland
Indridi H. Indridason
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 134159
Chapter 3
A Conservative Revolution: The Electoral Response to Economic Crisis in Ireland
Michael Marsh & Slava Mikhaylov
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 160179
Chapter 4
The Elections of the Great Recession in Portugal: Performance Voting under a Blurred Responsibility for the Economy
Pedro C. Magalhes
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 180202
Chapter 5
The Incumbent Electoral Defeat in the 2011 Spanish National Elections: The Effect of the Economic Crisis in an Ideological Polarized Party System
Mariano Torcal
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 203221
Chapter 6
Dealignment, De-legitimation and the Implosion of the Two-Party System in Greece: The Earthquake Election of 6 May 2012
Eftichia Teperoglou & Emmanouil Tsatsanis
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 222242
Chapter 7
The Political Consequences of Blame Attribution for the Economic Crisis in the 2013 Italian National Election
Paolo Bellucci
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, volume 24, issue 2 (May 2014) pp. 243263
Please direct any queries you may have about the citations to clsuk.permissions@cengage.com
Paolo Bellucci is Professor of Comparative Political Behaviour in the Centre for the Study of Political Change, University of Siena, Italy.
Indridi H. Indridason is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA.
Pedro C. Magalhes is Principal Researcher in the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Michael Marsh is a Fellow Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Slava Mikhaylov is a Senior Lecturer in Research Methods in the Department of Political Science at University College London, UK.
Eftichia Teperoglou is a Faculty Member in the Zentrum fr Europische Sozialforschung (MZES) at the University of Mannheim, Germany.
Mariano Torcal is Professor of Political Science at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
Emmanouil Tsatsanis is a Researcher in the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology at the University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal.
We are pleased to present this issue of JEPOP which is a special issue on the topic of how the financial crisis in Europe has changed the electoral politics of some of the most deeply affected countries. We are delighted to welcome on board Pedro C. Magalhes as guest co-editor for this issue. Pedro is principal researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and one of the coordinators of the Portuguese Election Study. Pedro is not only the author of one of the articles in this issue but has been instrumental in recruiting the other authors whose work is included, and who originally delivered early versions of these articles at a conference organised by the Department of Government and the BMW Center for German and European Studies of Georgetown University. All articles in this issue have been through JEPOPs rigorous reviewing process and we would like to thank our two referees, Professor Jack Vowles and Professor Sara Hobolt (who waive their anonymity).
