ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the differences across social groups in their understanding of the crisis by looking into partisan identities of the demonstrators in anti-austerity protest in Spain. Anti-austerity protest in Spain can be understood in a broad context where the economic crisis evolved in parallel to a political crisis. The first symptoms of the economic crisis in Spain were felt in the beginning of 2008 with the bursting bubble of real estate prices that had increased with little control for over 20 years. The reaction of the Socialist government to the crisis at the beginning of 2008 was a boost in public spending and stimulus packages intended to face recession without major changes in public policy. The most important national unions have been directly targeted by the Indignados along with the main parties as being responsible for the crisis and the intrusion of the financial markets and corporate interests in government policy.
