Popular Austerity

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007/2008, many political leaders and economic policymakers concluded that fiscal austerity was necessary on economic grounds. But they feared spending cuts or tax increases would lead to electoral ruin. Nevertheless, in many countries, orthodox economic arguments won out, and austerity policies were delivered. The immediate political consequences were unexpected: many austerity governments achieved re-election, and parties of the left failed to make major gains. This book seeks to explain both of these outcomes, along with how austerity can be popular. Focusing on United Kingdom public opinion data, similar evidence from Germany and the USA, and wider cross-national comparisons, Popular Austerity shows that voters care about high levels of government borrowing to the extent of supporting otherwise painful policies, and more readily associate high borrowing with 'over-spending' rather than 'under-taxing'. Lucy Barnes and Tim Hicks explore how these conditions enable electorally viable austerity programmes and how this asymmetric association of borrowing with over-spending creates differing and much more difficult political circumstances for parties of the left compared to those of the right. Popular Austerity illustrates how these dynamics, taken together, amount to a decisive political headwind for parties of the left in contexts where borrowing and its salience are high to explain why political ruin isn't the inevitable outcome of fiscal austerity. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations