Revista de comunicación política e institucional

No. 55 (2024): Political communication in the face of economic crises.
Monographic sections

Public opinion on public spending: a key issue for political communication strategies in periods of economic crisis

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.56151/maspoderlocal.192
Ruth Cicuéndez Santamaría
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC)

Keywords

  • Opinión Pública,
  • crisis,
  • preferencias de gasto,
  • demandas sociales,
  • pandemia,
  • Gran recesión
  • Public opinion; crisis; public spending preferences; social demands; pandemic; Great Recession.,
  • Public opinión,
  • crisis,
  • public pending preferences,
  • social demands,
  • pandemic,
  • Great Recession

How to Cite

Cicuéndez Santamaría, R. (2024). Public opinion on public spending: a key issue for political communication strategies in periods of economic crisis. Más Poder Local, (55), 29-53. https://doi.org/10.56151/maspoderlocal.192

Copyright (c) 2024 Of the author or authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Do public policy preferences change during crises? In what way? The literature suggests that recessions influence public opinion, but there is little empirical evidence that fiscal preferences change in a significant and lasting way during crises. This paper analyzes the evolution of Spaniards’ public spending preferences on eight public policies during the Great Recession and the economic collapse of the pandemic. It uses data from CIS surveys conducted between 2006 and 2023. The research also explores government narratives about the measures taken to deal with recessions. The results indicate that crises affect public opinion and that most respondents support increased spending on social policies, but not in other areas. These changes would be temporary, and once the situation is over, it returns to the usual patterns. It has been discovered that preferences are generally consistent across social groups, but there are discernible variations during times of economic decline. There is no evidence that different government discourse strategies have a significant impact on public opinion preferences.

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