With the outbreak of the Great Recession, the European Union suffered an extraordinary crisis. More specifically, the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area had a particularly devastating impact on the Southern periphery of the EU, where unemployment levels rocketed and living standards dropped substantially (Bermeo and Pontusson 2012). At the same time, these countries have applied strong austerity policies, which have been generally rejected by the majority of the population and have contributed to a rise in inequality to levels not seen since before the 1930s (IMF, 2013). Since 2007, levels of satisfaction with democracy, trust in the democratic institutions and support for the EU and the euro dropped extraordinarily. This research project covers five surveys conducted in Spain, one of the main Southern European countries, on the topic of democratic dissatisfaction. The surveys contribute to a better understanding of the political consequences of the crisis in Southern Europe by analysing the increase in democratic disaffection and its relation with EU constraints, globalization and governments implementing policies that do not represent citizens’ preferences. The surveys also study responsibility attributions in a multilevel state like Spain. The main hypothesis of this project is that Southern European countries are undergoing a crisis of legitimation. Citizens' democratic dissatisfaction is the consequence of a responsiveness gap: that is, citizens' perception that governments are not responding to their demands anymore. The surveys allow to study how this crisis of representation and legitimation has taken place and its consequences. They provide information of what are the mechanisms by which democratic dissatisfaction increased in the decade after the Great Recession and the austerity measures implemented by the subsequent Spanish governments. All surveys include representative samples of the Spanish population. The data contains a collection of five surveys in which different views on satisfaction with democracy, views on the European Union and the financial crisis were asked in Spain.This project wants to contribute to a better understanding of the political consequences of the crisis in Southern Europe and is motivated by the unprecedented decrease in levels of satisfaction with democracy. The main hypothesis of this project is that Southern European countries are undergoing a crisis of legitimation. Citizens' democratic dissatisfaction is the consequence of a responsiveness gap: that is, citizens' perception that governments are not responding to their demands anymore. The project will study how this crisis of representation and legitimation is taking place and its consequences. More specifically, the project answers to three main questions: 1. What explains democratic dissatisfaction in Southern Europe? This part of the project will test the core argument: the crisis of legitimation stems from national governments not being responsive to citizens' mandate given the institutional constraints of euro membership. One of the key principles of democratic systems is to provide an alternative to voters if they believe that the government has not performed well enough. The argument put forward here is that the crisis has undermined this essential function of voting in Southern Europe: elections are not able to generate governments in which political parties become a real alternative to each other. 2. What is the impact of democratic dissatisfaction on attitudes towards national democracy? The project will argue that the increase in democratic dissatisfaction and the breakup of the representation link has a strong impact on attitudes in several dimensions of national-level politics: 1) austerity policies have an impact in the expectations that citizens have from a democratic system and make citizens depart from a liberal and minimal view on democracy to conceive democracies more as a result, placing more weight on the social rights of citizens 2) the project will also test whether the crisis of legitimation increases the demand for institutions of direct democracy; 3) the project will account for whether, as a result of this representation breakup, some citizens have become less engaged with politics and others have become more mobilised. In doing this, differences between the countries of analysis will also be explored. 3. How does democratic dissatisfaction shape attitudes towards the European Union and the euro in Southern Europe? The project will assess the implications of the crisis in terms of the support and views about the European Union project and also the conditions under which citizens of Southern Europe would support a breakup of the Eurozone. This last stream of the project will fill two main gaps in the discipline: to provide an updated account of citizens' motivations to support the euro and open a new avenue of research on the support for debt repayment and the conditions of bailout agreements.

All surveys were fielded by Netquest. All surveys have representative national samples of the Spanish population. The surveys use quota samples by gender, age and in some cases region. The surveys were completed online, following ethical criteria and drawing from the online panel of Netquest.