Anti-austerity voting in an era of economic crisis: Regional evidence from the 2015 referendum in Greece

Abstract

The austerity measures and structural reforms that Greece had to undertake since 2010 in exchange for financial aid divided the Greek political system into pro-austerity and anti-austerity camps. These divisions reached a climax with the July 2015 referendum. The paper attempts to assess the extent that to which the geographic patterns that emerged in voting were due to the differentiated economic regional impact of economic crisis. Using economic voting theory as a benchmark, and employing spatial econometric methods, the study contributes to a largely ignored topic, known as geographies of economic voting, providing new and valuable insights for an under-researched time period.