The Global Financial Crisis and Postmaterialist Protest

The last half century has seen the rise of ‘postmaterialist’ protest. Whereas historically political protest has been a vehicle of the underprivileged who had limited access to other forms of political participation, since the 1960s political protest has more frequently been used by those of higher levels of education and socio-economic status to express postmaterialist concerns, such as environmentalism and social justice. This paper will investigate the impact of the Global Financial Crisis on protest activity in OECD countries. Particularly, it will question whether the Crisis has facilitated a decline in postmaterialist protest alongside a return to materialist protest. The paper will employ a comparative quantitative methodology using the latest wave of the World Values Survey data.