Economic crisis and attitudes towards democracy: How ideology moderates reactions to economic downturns Articles
Overview
published in
- Frontiers in Political Science Journal
publication date
- August 2021
volume
- 97
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
full text
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 2673-3145
abstract
-
This paper studies the extent to which economic crises bust different reactions depending
on individual ideological identity. Our argument is that individual left-right identification
shapes how citizens evaluate the functioning of democracy, and consequently, it
moderates the impact of economic crises on democratic discontent. We argue that
left-wing individuals" views on democratic performance would be more heavily affected by
economic results and strongly shaped by the (in)capacity of a democracy to represent its
citizens in its reaction to the economic crisis. After testing our argument with data from the
ESS, we provide evidence from a survey experiment conducted in Spain. Both analyses
show that economic crises are relevant in explaining democratic dissatisfaction, but the
strength of their impact depends on ideological identities. Economic results have a
stronger effect on the satisfaction with democracy of left-wing individuals by negatively
affecting their perception of the functioning of democratic representation.
Classification
subjects
- Politics
- Sociology
keywords
- left-right ideology; satisfaction with democracy; attitudes towards democracy; european crisis; spain