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The Eurozone crisis triggered deep political dissent in Southern Europe. As the crisis unfolded, citizens took massively to the streets in attempts to prevent austerity policies but also to call for more democracy. We analyze protest waves in four Southern European countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. We argue that protest events are reactions to austerity measures when austerity is the only game in town. Hence, we test the effects of elections, the presence of new challengers, and austerity votes on protest. We use a data set of protest events based on the coding of newswires covering protest in its different forms from 2000 to 2015. We show that protest waves took place in the four countries and that they reveal widespread dissatisfaction with austerity policies. Our article contributes to the understanding of the links between protest and institutional politics during the Eurozone crisis.

First Published January 2, 2018 ; The Eurozone crisis triggered deep political dissent in Southern Europe. As the crisis unfolded, citizens took massively to the streets in attempts to prevent austerity policies but also to call for more democracy. We analyze protest waves in four Southern European countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. We argue that protest events are reactions to austerity measures when austerity is the only game in town. Hence, we test the effects of elections, the presence of new challengers, and austerity votes on protest. We use a data set of protest events based on the coding of newswires covering protest in its different forms from 2000 to 2014. We show that protest waves took place in the four countries and that they reveal widespread dissatisfaction with austerity policies. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the links between protest and institutional politics during the Eurozone crisis.

The refugee crisis which hit the European Union and its member states during 2015–16 was just one in a series of recent crises, but perhaps the most critical for the EU's resilience. This book shows how policymakers in the EU polity have tried to come to terms with it. To explain how they reacted to the crisis domestically and jointly at the EU-level, the study relies on an original method to analyze political processes. It argues that the policy-specific institutional context and the specific crisis situation, defined in terms of asymmetrical problem and political pressure, largely shaped the crisis response. The authors suggest that the way in which the refugee crisis was managed has resulted in conflicts between member states, which have been further exacerbated in subsequent crises and will continue to haunt the EU in times to come.