Bad economic and wartime periods produce more deliberative democratic behavior than good ones

Evidence

Periods of economic depression (with the accompanying job losses and threats aimed at large numbers of families) will certainly activate people’s emotional triggers and motivate their political attention. Economic booms, on the other hand, may induce enthusiasm and, thus, political involvement without deliberation. Similarly, failure during war-time should spur close attention while success should lead to grand parades in the collective fantasy. Because deliberation seems, at least in part, a function of emotionality, the nature of democratic government thus depends on how emotions get linked to political circumstances and how that link varies over time. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1748

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: prosperity is politically anesthetic — the deliberative deficit of good times, and what it means that democracies may only function well under threat.
• XREF: Connects to Hannah Arendt’s observations on politics as emergency response vs. routinized administration.