Living with Hard Times

The book provides the first comprehensive comparative study of the socio-political effects of the Great Recession amongst European citizens. This book presents a detailed investigation of heterogeneity in the population within countries with respect to how citizens made sense of the crisis and how this impacted on their livelihoods, outlooks and political engagement. It analyses citizens’ experiences of the economic crisis, the decline of living standards and deprivation by structural location as well as differences in economic outlooks. It examines the ways in which citizens from different social groups were able to be resilient to the effects of the economic crisis. Moreover, it shows how social support and social capital emerging from social relations contributed to resilience in the face of the crisis. It also examines citizen attitudes in relation to various welfare policies and to immigration and how support for populist parties are differentiated within the population. The book also looks at the impact of the crisis on different types of political action challenging incumbent governments and protesting against austerity policies.