German and Greek Citizens Talking Politics: The Eurocrisis and Political Participation

The financial crisis affected European countries to a varying extent. Southern European countries were hit hard and had to resort to economic assistance from the EU and the IMF on the condition that they apply harsh austerity to their constituents. Northern European countries appear to have survived the crisis, yet citizens were obliged to provide credit to crisis-hit countries and receive increased immigration flows. Citizens’ political responses to the crisis differ as well. Social movement formation and voting for the left was the response of southern Europeans, while northern Europeans voted increasingly for the (populist) right. Why is this the case? The present paper attempts to answer this question by focusing on the protagonists of the crisis, i.e. Greek and German citizens, examining their experience of the crisis and their consequent political strategies. The analysis of eighteen focus group discussions indicates that the financial crisis politicized different issues in the public agenda in these two countries. Economy and generalized political disenchantment were the fundamental issues in the Greek discussions, whereas immigration and European integration monopolized the discussion in Germany. With Greece facing a simultaneous crisis of political representation, citizens turned their backs to the political system, by participating in the Indignant movement and by punishing the centrist parties that mishandled the crisis. They voted instead for the left, which mobilized around anti-austerity demands. In Germany citizens primarily rewarded the (responsible) governing coalition that kept them out of the crisis, expressing though their discontent by voting for the populist right, which voiced demands for control over immigration. Thus the financial crisis contributed to a politicization of the European question and led to a radicalization of political strategies, but was articulated differently in the two cases based on their democratic experience, the severity of the crisis, and the supply of political organizations.