Fiscal Policy and Political Ideology: Did Austerity Reshape Britain’s Political Landscape?

Cian Lester
Additional contact information
Cian Lester: University of Warwick

Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers from Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers

Abstract: This paper investigates whether austerity-induced welfare cuts contributed to a shift in political ideology in the United Kingdom during the 2010s. Combining welfare reform data with general election outcomes and survey-based ideological positioning, the study constructs a Right-Wing Index to capture temporal and spatial variation in rightwing political sentiment. Using a Multi-Way Fixed Effects Difference-in-Difference approach, the analysis estimates the impact of austerity on right-wing ideology. The paper contributes to political economy literature by incorporating updated 2020/21 austerity estimates and a broader ideological framework beyond party vote shares alone. Overall, the findings suggest that austerity shaped British political ideology in complex, time-dependent ways. In the short term, it reduced support for the right through electoral backlash, but may have caused longer-term shifts toward right-wing populism as economic hardship deepened.

Keywords: Voting Behaviour; Austerity; Elections; Fiscal Policy; Welfare Expenditure JEL classifications: D72; H30; H53; I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/wmesp/manage/88_-_lester.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:88

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers from Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().