The Political Consequences of the Great Recession

I was a member of the ERC-funded research project POLCON, which analyses the political consequences of the Great Recession. The project combined a comparative-static analysis of 30 European countries with a dynamic analysis of political conflict in 12 cases. For this purpose, we studied both elections and political protest in the shadow of the Great Recession and analysed the issue-specific public interaction between both political arenas. The key question that the project addresses was whether the Great Recession changed the long-term trends of political conflict in Europe. For this purpose, we utlised survey data as well as original content analyis of protest events, election campaigns, and issue-specific public contestations.

In co-authored papers, I worked on different aspects of this research project. On the one hand, I worked on comparative-static analyses of the electoral consequences of the Great Recession. On the other hand, I analysed the development of political conflict in comparative case studies. In particular, I have worked on chapters in edited volumes that analyse the development of political conflict in Germany, Greece, Spain and the UK. Some of the research from this project is still ungoing and I also plan to work on the politics of economic crises in the future.

Publications:

• “Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession” (with Swen Hutter, and Hanspeter Kriesi). European Journal of Political Research, 2020.
  Pre-print version / online appendix / replication material
• “Electoral punishment and protest politics in times of crisis” (with Swen Hutter and Hanspeter Kriesi). In Hanspeter Kriesi, Jasmine Lorenzini, Bruno Wüest, and Silja Häusermann (eds.), Contention in Times of Crises: Comparing Political Protest in 30 European Countries, 2000-2015. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
• “The restructuring of British and German party politics in times of crisis” (with Julia Schulte-Cloos). In Hutter, Swen and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.), European Party Politics in Times of Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
• “From boom to bust: A comparative analysis of Greece and Spain under austerity” (with Guillem Vidal). In Doxiadis, Evdoxios and Aimee Placas (eds.). Living Under Austerity: Greek Society in Crisis. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018.

Working papers:

• “The effect of austerity packages on government popularity during the Great Recession” (with Abel Bojar, Hanspeter Kriesi and Chendi Wang, revise and resubmit)

Work in progress:

• The impact of bank bailouts on government popularity during the Great Recession” (with Abel Bojar)