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Skowronek's theory of "political time" posits that presidential success follows historical cycles, but it does not specify a unique causal mechanism. Each president merely reacts to their predecessor or to historical circumstance. Scholars of "political time" also suggest that the power of history may be diminishing over time. This article uses theory and evidence to address the causality issue in both instances. First, it shows that economic crises drive political time forward. Second, it argues that recent political commitments to a combination of New Deal and Reaganite ideas and policies have been used to attenuate economic crises. Hence, it is not that the power of history has waned. Rather, the causal nature of political time has been under‐specified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral consequences of the Great Recession are analysed in this article by combining insights from economic voting theories and the literature on party system change. Taking cues from these two theoretical perspectives, the impact of the Great Recession on the stability and change of Western, Central and Eastern European party systems is assessed. The article starts from the premise that, in order to fully assess the impact of the contemporary crisis, classic economic voting hypotheses focused on incumbent parties need to be combined with accounts of long-term party system change provided by realignment and dealignment theories. The empirical analysis draws on an original dataset of election results and economic and political indicators in 30 European democracies. The results indicate that during the Great Recession economic strain was associated with sizable losses for incumbent parties and an increasing destabilisation of Western European party systems, while its impact was significantly weaker in Central and Eastern European countries, where political rather than economic failures appeared to be more relevant. In line with the realignment perspective, the results also reveal that in Western Europe populist radical right, radical left and non-mainstream parties benefited the most from the economic hardship, while support for mainstream parties decreased further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This article investigates whether economic growth and income level affect revolution attempts and successful revolutions. Methods The article conducts a statistical analysis, mainly using panel data logit models, on a data set including 150 countries with time series from 1919 to 2003. Results Low short-term growth increases probabilities of both attempted and successful revolutions. There is some evidence that higher income levels mitigate revolution attempts, but this is not robust and further analysis indicates that any association may stem from oil income more specifically. There is no net effect of income level on successful revolution, but high income seemingly reduces probability of successful revolution more in democracies than in dictatorships. Although revolutions occur more frequently after 'J curves' and 'decremental deprivation patterns,' this is largely due to economic crises and not the more complex growth patterns as hypothesized by, respectively, Davies and Gurr. Conclusion Low short-term economic growth induces revolutions, whereas the impact of income level is less clear and seemingly contingent on factors such as regime type and source of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who benefits from deep economic crises: the left, the right or neither? On the basis of evidence from elections in 1929-1933 and 2008-2013 in all states that were democracies in both periods, it is argued in this article that the electoral consequences of the Great Depression and the Great Recession were surprisingly similar: in both periods, right-wing parties were at first more successful than left-wing parties, although this effect only lasted for a few years. The manner in which a crisis develops over time should be taken into account when examining the effects of deep economic downturns on the electoral fortunes of the left and the right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remarkably, the most serious financial crisis in living memory has had few political consequences. Diane Coyle argues that one of the reasons is a method of calculating GDP that overstates the value of the financial sector to the UK economy, helping to shield it from sensible reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including political economy, depressions and financial crisis.