Grasso, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-6911-2241 and Giugni, M. (2016) Protest participation and economic crisis: The conditioning role of political opportunities. European Journal of Political Research, 55 (4). pp. 663-680. ISSN 0304-4130
Abstract
The economic crisis that started in 2008 has negatively affected European nations to different degrees. The sudden rise in demonstrations particularly in those countries most hard hit by the crisis suggests that grievance theories, dismissed in favour of resource-based models since the 1970s, might have a role to play for explaining protest behaviour. While most previous studies have tested these theories at the individual or contextual level, it is likely that mechanisms at both levels are interrelated. To fill this lacuna, we examine the ways in which individual-level grievances interact with macro-level factors to impact on protest behaviour. In particular, we examine whether the impact of individual subjective feelings of deprivation is conditional on contextual macroeconomic and policy factors. We find that while individual-level relative deprivation has a direct effect on the propensity to have protested in the last year, this effect is greater under certain macroeconomic and political conditions. We interpret both significant results for the cross-level interactions in terms of their role for opening up political opportunities for protest amongst those who felt they had been most deprived in the current crisis. These findings suggest that the interaction of the contextual and individual level should continue to be explored in future studies in order to further clarify the mechanisms underlying protest behaviour.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 European Consortium for Political Research. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in European Journal of Political Research. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | protest; participation; relative deprivation; macroeconomic context; political opportunity structure |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EUROPEAN COMMISSION - FP6/FP7 LIVEWHAT 613237 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 Jun 2016 11:57 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jul 2018 00:38 |
Published Version: | https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12153 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/1475-6765.12153 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:100594 |