Has the Great Recession Shaped a Crisis Generation of Critical Citizens? Evidence from Southern Europe

ABSTRACT This article examines the potential emergence of a ‘new’ and ‘critical’ political generation in Southern Europe after an exceptionally intense political period. Using country-specific classifications of political generations, we first describe the evolution of a combination of two main attitudes towards the political system – frequency of political discussion and satisfaction with democracy – and then propose a fourfold typology: happy, critical, unengaged and disillusioned citizens. Grounded on political socialisation theories we hypothesise that the crisis generation, which developed its main political attitudes during the Great Recession, will be particularly critical in the long term, combining dissatisfaction with political engagement. To identify this potential new generation, we use a longitudinal perspective and Eurobarometer data from 1985 to 2019 and find empirical support to identify such a ‘critical generation’ in Spain and Greece. In contrast, results in Italy and Portugal suggest an increase in happy citizens who are satisfied with how democracy works and who are politically engaged.