The Electoral Effects of Social Democratic Austerity

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 8 examines the electoral consequences of social democratic austerity. A lot of research suggests that mainstream parties benefit from programmatic moderation because it allows them to capture ‘potential’ centrist voters. Yet, austerity is often incompatible with the brand of social democratic parties, threatening to undermine the partisan attachment of their ‘core’ voters. This chapter tests which effect dominates by analysing the electoral effects of social democratic austerity during the Great Recession. It uses time-series-cross-section analysis to examine the relationship between austerity events and the popularity of centre-left parties in twelve European countries from 2008 to 2017. The results show that social democrats lost support when they implemented austerity and that this effect persisted over time. The chapter then uses individual-level panel analysis based on the British Election Study (BES) to examine how voters responded when the Labour Party adopted orthodox policies in election campaigns. Potential voters who are fiscally conservative were unlikely to support the party. Rather, orthodox fiscal policies undermined the party’s ability to mobilize its core voters that were opposed to austerity. This contributed to the crisis of social democracy in Europe.