Economic Crises, Resource Depletion and Participation: Studying the Effects of the Economic Crisis on Low-Resource, 'Individualised' Political Participation in Western Europe

The financial crisis of 2007/08 brought about the worst economic crisis in a century, negatively impacting on the socio-economic and political lives of citizens worldwide. While across Europe there has been a well-documented decline in formal political participation over recent years, such as voting and joining parties, the same trend has not been observed regarding other ‘informal’, alternative, modes of political participation, which are much understudied and under-measured. Theory holds that in times of crises, citizens exit the political sphere due to a lack of social capital and resources to engage. However such individually-based forms of political participation as badge wearing or product boycotting are low-resource, low-cost actions of political participation which do not require much social capital or resources to use. Using quantitative methods, this study finds that participation of this description in Western Europe has not seen decline after the ‘great recession’, and in some cases increased.