Over seven waves of the European Social Survey covering 23 countries from 2002 to 2015, actual economic conditions (changes in gross domestic product, unemployment, government spending, and immigration) had no apparent impact on the prevalence of right-wing ideology, anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-E. U. sentiment — and only small, mixed effects on levels of political distrust and democratic disaffection.

The Wall Street meltdown of 2008 and its global fallout provided a massive natural experiment for scholars of mass politics in tough times. The results could not be clearer: The worst economic crisis since the 1930s did remarkably little to fuel right-wing populist sentiment.

Indeed, anyone tracking European attitudes over the past 15 years would have a hard time guessing that anything at all had happened. Anti-immigrant sentiment actually declined slightly, despite millions of new immigrants. Only dissatisfaction with the state of the national economy increased noticeably in 2008-2009. But it soon subsided to pre-crisis levels — and my statistical analysis suggests that economic disaffection itself generated little support for right-wing populist parties in any case.