The impact of economic crisis on civic attitudes: The moderating role of expected social mobility. Evidence from some European countries

Purpose In times of crisis, the deterioration of living standards may also have direct consequences on civic culture of people and become dangerous for the health of democracy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the recent economic crisis directly influences the civic attitudes in some European democracies focusing on two questions: how much does crisis exposure affect civic attitudes? And what is the role played by expected social mobility on this effect? Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses are tested using data collected in the Western European countries included in the Life in Transition Survey II (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and UK). To analyze the civic consequences of crisis exposure and to evaluate the moderating role of expected social mobility, multivariate regressions are conducted. The statistical analysis is performed using the Stata software. Findings The findings show that economic crisis exposure significantly affects civic attitudes. The results confirm that higher crisis exposure is associated with lower civic attitudes. Additionally, the present research rules out the possibility that crisis exposure affects attitudes in a specific way, depending on the expected mobility valence. Social implications To evaluate the moderating factors of the civic consequences of economic crises is important for both academic research and policymakers. Analyzing these mechanisms may lead to understand under which conditions it is possible to limit deterioration processes in democratic fabric of a society. Originality/value This paper sheds light on the importance of analyzing the negative civic effect of economic crisis and on the critical role that the fear of social downgrading plays in determining this effect.