Austerity, populism, and the politics of blame: an ideational perspective

In rich democracies, especially in Europe, austerity and populism are two major political phenomena that have drawn much scholarly attention since the 2008 financial crisis. Because of the contemporary prominence of these two concepts and their importance for ongoing social policy debates, working on the relationship between austerity and populism is a useful endeavour that could improve our understanding of these debates. To shed light on these concepts, it is necessary to define them before exploring their potential relationship. In this chapter, we do this using an ideational perspective that stresses the role of framing processes in the politics of social policy, with a focus on the politics of blame. Then, we use the example of the U.K. before and during the 2016 Brexit referendum to illustrate our claims.