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Bring the Poor Back In! Inequalities, Welfare and Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Nonna Mayer
Nonna Mayer*
Affiliation:
Centre d’études européennes de Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75337 Paris, Cedex 07, France
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Abstract

This lecture addresses the political impact of the Great Recession in a context of rising inequalities and retrenching welfare states. Do hard times fuel apathy or revolt, abstention or support for the extremes, and more particularly, in the European context, for thriving radical rights? To answer these questions, I shall take the case of France, in the 2012 presidential election, the first post-crisis one. I shall focus on the poor, the disadvantaged: those hardest hit by the recession.

Keywords

inequalitiespovertysocial precariousnesspolitical participationradical right

Information

Type
Keynote Lecture
Information
European Political Science , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 187 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 European Consortium for Political Research

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Footnotes

*Text of the Plenary Lecture titled ‘Inequalities, Welfare and Politics’ given in Bordeaux, on 5 September, for the 7th General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR).

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