This paper extends recent work finding that where the policy commitment to working-age adults and families is greater, political participation is both higher and more equally distributed. Not only does increased spending on working-age populations serve to attract all social strata to the political sphere through redistributive effects fostering the saliency of politics, but generous social policies also embody messages of inclusiveness, thereby enhancing political efficacy. Recent work has however revealed alternative political participation is most common among low-income earners in the most generous welfare states. I examine the ways in which the incidence/distribution of alternative participation have been affected by recent austerity measures. These analyses help explain why the poorest citizens in some of the most encompassing social systems are more likely to exercise their political voices in less conventional ways. Furthermore, by looking at change we can begin to tackle the endogeneity issues plaguing studies of this sort.
