Disclaiming national representatives : protest waves in Southern Europe during the crisis

Abstract

The Eurozone crisis triggered deep political dissent in Southern Europe. As the crisis unfolded, citizens took massively to the streets in attempts to prevent austerity policies but also to call for more democracy. We analyze protest waves in four Southern European countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. We argue that protest events are reactions to austerity measures when austerity is the only game in town. Hence, we test the effects of elections, the presence of new challengers, and austerity votes on protest. We use a data set of protest events based on the coding of newswires covering protest in its different forms from 2000 to 2014. We show that protest waves took place in the four countries and that they reveal widespread dissatisfaction with austerity policies. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the links between protest and institutional politics during the Eurozone crisis.