This book examines the political consequences of the economic crisis in Southern Europe from the perspective of a widening intergenerational divide. It focuses on the cases of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain to fill the gap in the literature by examining various age-related rifts in post-crisis Southern Europe. Public discussion about the economic crisis of the late 2000s to mid-2010s in Southern Europe often refers to its impact on the region’s younger citizens, but not enough attention has been given to the political consequences of the crisis on the young. The comparative studies in the volume cover various thematic areas, such as electoral behaviour, political culture, democratic values, forms of political engagement and political representation. The overarching questions that the book attempts to answer are: a) to what extent and in what areas can one talk about an emergent generational divide in the region, and b) has the experience of the economic crisis been profound enough for young South Europeans to create a new ‘crisis political generation’? Many of the answers offered point to tangible effects of the crisis, but mostly in the sense of accentuating dynamics that already existed. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

This book examines the political consequences of the economic crisis in Southern Europe from the perspective of a widening intergenerational divide. It focuses on the cases of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain by examining various age-related rifts in post-crisis Southern Europe.

This book investigates the fast-learning experience of Covid-19’s initial onset in a region long renowned for low state capacity, political polarisation and weak health systems. Covid-19, a global health emergency entailing a major existential threat, presented a crucial challenge for national governments and political systems. It elicited drastic policy measures, including unprecedented lockdowns. The question of how and why some states acted more effectively in facing this emergency situation has important implications for future crisis management. The outcomes varied greatly across countries, ranging from examples for emulation to dire portents of the consequences of losing control. Case studies of Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey examine crisis preparedness, policy response, political dynamics and societal reception. A comparative overview chapter offers potential explanations for the divergence in national performance. This volume will be of great use to students and researchers across the fields of European studies, political leadership, public policy, governance and public health. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

This book offers a detailed analysis of affective polarisation based primarily on a unique dataset created from an online panel survey in Spain. Spain is a country that provides a rich context for the exploration of identity-based polarisation. The analysis spans particularly politically relevant times in Spain during which identities were highly politicised, providing important lessons for the comparative standpoint. A series of different individual-level measures of likes and dislikes towards different social-groups, including partisan supporters, national and subnational identifiers and other social groups are provided in the survey, allowing the authors to observe the social identities behind the growing levels of individual affective polarisation. Contributions in this volume examine the time trends of affective polarisation over this period of intense political instability and crisis and evaluate the potential factors that might explain its dynamics. The book pays special attention, on the one hand, to the party supply effect and, on the other, to the increasing partisan and ideological content of press and social media. It also looks at some potential behavioural consequences of affective polarisation such as the change and dynamics of party system, turnout, and support for radical right-wing parties (RRPs). Affective Polarisation in Spain: Electoral, Regional and Media Conflictuality will be beneficial for students, researchers and scholars of Spanish History and Politics, Sociology, and International Relations. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

A study of party competition in Europe since 2008 aids understanding of the recent, often dramatic, changes taking place in European politics.

Representative democracies are facing huge challenges that stem from long trends of citizens’ dissatisfaction and weakening of political legitimacy, on the one hand, and the effects of global economic and financial crisis on electoral alignments and the patterns of government, on the other. This volume uses the Portuguese case as an important case study to examine the long-term debate on the crisis of representative democracies with the attempt to assess the impact of the Great Recession. In particular, this study examines two relevant dimensions, namely citizens’ participation and mobilization, as well as longitudinal evolution of the linkages between voters and MPs, highlighting both continuities and changes. Through a wide and rich data collection and the comparative perspective adopted, this study furthers our understanding of how Portuguese democracy has bounced back and has emerged as a peculiar case among European democracies, especially if we look at innovate democratic practices - at both citizens’ and elites’ level – that have been adopted after the Great Recession.

This collective volume - with contributions from experts on these regions - examines broader questions about the current crises (The Great Recession and The Commodity Crisis) and the associated changes in political representation in both regions. It provides a general overview of political representation studies in Southern Europe and Latin America and builds bridges between the two traditions of political representation studies, affording greater understanding of developments in each region and promote future research collaboration between Southern Europe and Latin America. Finally, the book addresses questions of continuity and change in patterns of political representation after the onset of the two economic crises, specifically examining issues such as changes in citizens’ democratic support and trust in political representatives and institutions, in-descriptive representation (in the sociodemographic profile of MPs) and in-substantive representation (in the link between voters and MPs in terms of ideological congruence and/or policy/issue orientations). This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, political representation, European and Latin American politics/studies, and more broadly to comparative politics.