IRCPPs in the Links: Partisan Shifts After Financial Crises

Erik Voeten considers a paper by Lawrence Broz in the Monkey Cage:

...The general claim that we should expect people to shift leftwards during crises is well-supported by logic and evidence; and not just in this paper. In this sense, Occupy Wall Street is not unexpected but the Tea Party is. Now, there is an obvious way the current US case is different: the shift to the left occurred as the crisis was unfolding. Indeed, in Germany, France, and the UK right-wing coalitions are all facing plummeting approval ratings and difficult reelection prospects (although not immediate in all countries). Perhaps the US is different in other ways too. Scholars have been debating for years why working-class radicalism is so weak in the US?. Nonetheless, the comparative perspective provides some useful context to a movement whose salience appears to surprise a lot of people...