The Unemployed and the Restless: Protest Participation Among the Unemployed
2026-07-06
Under what conditions do the unemployed protest? Traditionally, scholars have found that joblessness creates feelings of depression and self-blame, reducing mobilization among the unemployed. Experiences of the past 30 years, including the Great Recession, have led scholars to reconsider the influence of material deprivation on mobilization. Specifically, a growing body of literature has highlighted numerous historical instances of mobilization among the unemployed. However, much of this literature has focused on particular cases, with little attention given to cross-national comparison. This study contributes a cross-national comparative analysis of when and where the unemployed mobilize using eleven rounds of data provided by the European Social Survey (ESS). We identify a convex, curvilinear relationship in which the unemployed are most likely to mobilize under conditions of high unemployment, particularly in countries with more generous welfare provision.