Challenging most political participation studies that suggest better socio-economic conditions to facilitate political activism, the recent mobilizations related to the economic crisis suggest that also socio-economic deterioration can trigger political activism. To study the mobilizing effect of socio-economic hardship, this paper develops further classical grievance theories, such as relative deprivation and quotidian disruption theory. It theorizes that the effect of economic crisis on protest participation: 1) is not homogenous, i.e. it triggers participation only of those people who are severely socio-economically grievanced, and 2) is conditioned by other macro-characteristics of the state that influence the effects of crisis, such as the level of welfare state. To examine that, data from repeated comparative surveys before and after economic crisis (ESS in 30 countries) are analyzed using multilevel modeling with cross-level interactions between macro and micro measures of socio-economic hardship and between other state characteristics (social spending etc.).
