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Neo-Weberian occupational class schemas, rooted in industrial-age employment relations, are a standard socio-economic position measure in social stratification. Previous research highlighted Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP)-based schemas’ difficulties in keeping up with changing labour markets, but few tested alternative explanations. This article explores how job tasks linked to technological change and rising economic inequality might confound the links between employment relations, classes, and life chances. Using the European Working Conditions Survey covering the European Union (EU)-27 countries, this article analyses over time and by gender: 1) the task distribution between social classes; and 2) whether tasks predict class membership and life chances. Decomposition analyses suggest that tasks explain class membership and wage inequality better than theorised employment relations. However, intellectual/routine tasks and digital tools driving income inequality are well-stratified by occupational classes. Therefore, this article does not argue for a class (schema) revolution but for fine-tuning the old instrument to portray market inequalities in the digital age.

First Published January 2, 2018 The article focuses on the party political spaces in four Southern European countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) since the onset of the Euro crisis. To understand the emerging conflict structures, it argues for the need to consider that these countries simultaneously face an economic crisis and a political crisis and that both crises have strong domestic and European components. Moreover, the major driving forces of change tend to be social movements and political parties that forcefully combine opposition to austerity and to “old politics.” This leads to a complex conflict structure shaped by struggles over austerity and political renewal. In this structure, divides over economic and political issues are closely aligned with each other. While this pattern emerges everywhere, there are distinct country differences. Empirically, the article relies on original data from a large-scale content analysis of national election campaigns in the four countries in the period 2011 to 2015.

Published online: 03 Oct 2017 The two-party system in Spain collapsed in the aftermath of the Great Recession with the appearance of two new parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos. How are we to understand the sudden emergence of these new formations? Using 2015 and 2016 post-electoral survey data to map the ideological space and model voting behaviour, it is shown that economic voting is only part of the story. This article contends that the transformations in the Spanish party system are best understood through the prism of the crisis of representation that unfolded alongside the severe economic crisis. It is dissatisfaction with the political system that drives the vote for both new parties. The results also show that a unidimensional ideological structure and a generational divide cut across these critical attitudes. The young and politically dissatisfied are more likely to vote for new parties, each on different sides of the ideological spectrum.

Published online: 14 Apr 2016 The political effects of the Great Recession on southern Europe were substantial. The rapid economic deterioration of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain from 2008 onwards was accompanied by an increase in citizens' dissatisfaction towards national political institutions. The sources of political mistrust in the southern periphery were of a political and economic nature. Using quantitative data from EU member states from 2000 to 2015, this paper evaluates the suitability of competing theories in explaining this shift in political attitudes in southern European countries. It first hypothesizes that political mistrust is explained by citizens' rationalist evaluations of changing macroeconomic performance. It also hypothesizes that political mistrust changes according to institutional performance. The paper argues that economic crises act as an external shock that places politics, politicians and institutions in the spotlight as a result of citizens' deteriorating performance of the economy. The findings suggest that unemployment, public debt and political corruption are key variables in understanding short-term changes in political mistrust.

ERC POLCON project funded.