ABSTRACT
The primary question we seek to answer in this chapter is if, and then how, the economic crisis impacted political participation and engagement in Iceland. The crisis may have had a short- or long-term effect; it may have stopped, reversed or accelerated trends that were already in progress. Overall, Western democracies have seen indicators of conventional political participation, such as turnout and party membership, decline since the 1980s. However, there is not much evidence that the Great Recession resulted in a shock to turnout, although it may have affected different groups in different ways. In this chapter, we examine the following four indicators of political participation and engagement: turnout/electoral participation; party identification; party membership; and political interest. In doing so, we consider whether they have changed significantly after the global credit crunch. The results show that a downward trajectory in turnout had started before the economic crisis, and the path remained largely unchanged during and after the crisis. Membership in political parties and party identification show an acceleration of a downward trend after the crisis, from what was perhaps an unsustainable high point in 2007. Political interest remained stable during the period. The results do not show sorting in participation based on demographic groups following the recession. Overall, the pattern for political participation is similar to that observed in other chapters of this book: people did not abandon the broad system of democracy, but they turned away—at least temporarily—from particular actors within the system (the political parties).
