ABSTRACT
Iceland experienced profound societal and economic change in the decades before the Great Recession, yet the structure of the party system remained fundamentally unchanged. The four major established parties dominated party politics, with new parties failing to gain a foothold. At the same time, a process of dealignment was taking place—party–voter alignments were becoming increasingly muddled. In this chapter, we take on the task of asking if and how the financial crisis altered these alignments. Did the process of dealignment continue or did the crisis act as a catalyst for realignment? We find clear evidence of realignment in our analysis. The voter bases of the new and old parties alike are more internally homogeneous than they were in pre-crisis politics in several important respects: socio-economic position has become more important, parties have become much more polarised with respect to their voters’ political trust, and finally, we see that the importance of the state–market and isolation–integration issue dimensions has increased from the pre-crisis era.
