7 - Economic Grievances, Political Grievances, and Protest

Summary

The chapter establishes that economic and political grievances matter for economic protest in general and public economic protest in particular. In addition, it shows that, during the period covered, political grievances have been strongly influenced by economic grievances across Europe, but most clearly in southern Europe. While the rapid recovery of the countries of north-western Europe and the pain tolerance in the countries of central and eastern Europe probably served to limit the impact of the economic grievances on political dissatisfaction, the fact that the southern European countries not only were hard hit by the economic crisis, but also experienced a relative decline with regard to the other parts of Europe, most likely enhanced the impact of economic on political grievances in this part of Europe. Moreover, it is also above all in southern Europe that the effect of economic on political grievances was conditioned by state capacity and IMF interventions: while weak state capacity enhanced the effect of the former on the latter, IMF interventions attenuated it. Finally, a core finding of this chapter is that economic protest was most heavily influenced by the joint effect of economic and political grievances. Protest mobilization was particularly pronounced whenever dire economic conditions and dissatisfaction with the political system rose together and reinforced each other.