Neoliberalism and Democratic Disaffection in France and the UK: A Series of Natural Experiments

Voters are growing increasingly disenchanted with politics—and democracy more generally. Scholars tend to explain this disaffection in terms of voter characteristics or attitudes—such as socioeconomic status or dissatisfaction with the political establishment. However, there is a gap in the literature concerning the effects of policy implementation on this key link between voters and their corresponding national political system. Welfare state retrenchment, largely in the form of neoliberal social and educational policies, has been a staple of European politics over the past forty years. Is there a causal relationship between the implementation of neoliberal social and educational policies and voter democratic disaffection? To answer this question we use data from the European Election Study from 1979, 1989, and 2004 to conduct a natural experiment. We investigate if—in analogous phases of policy implementation—democratic disaffection converges or diverges between France and the UK. This comparative analysis allows us to investigate arguments about how political institutional environments mediate the effects of neoliberal policy implementation (Fourcade and Babb 2002). Our study builds on and expands the comparative natural experimental design of Svallfors (2010) and helps to produce findings that meaningfully speak to the causal effects of neoliberal policy implementation on democratic disaffection within and between the UK and France