ÖZP 2010/2  S.205-222

Harald Schoen

Economic Crisis, Anxiety, and the Affective Intelligence Model. Evidence from the 2009 German Federal Election

Keywords: anxiety, affective intelligence model, voting behavior, emotions, Germany

Building on the affective intelligence model, this paper addresses the role of anxiety caused by the economic crisis in affecting political information-processing. Utilizing data from a survey of a random sample from the German electorate, the analysis demonstrates that anxiety affected neither interest in politics nor interest in the campaign. Moreover, anxiety did not exhibit sizeable effects on media reception, political talks, and campaign reception. Anxiety conditioned the determinants of vote choice, however. High levels of anxiety caused by the crisis decreased the impact of party identification on vote choice while increasing the influence of issue attitudes. The paper concludes by summarizing key findings and discussing implications.