This article investigates how severe economic crises affect political representation in public communication within the Eurozone. Drawing on a novel approach using over 140,000 machine-coded news events from eleven countries between 2001 and 2011, it reveals that economic downturns lead to a compression of party relationships with societal actors.

Data & Methods: Analysis relies on extensive news data (over 140k coded events) covering eleven Eurozone nations during the period 2001-2011. Machine coding tracks political representation across public communications.

Key Findings: Contrary to expectations during crises, parties don't typically 'put politics aside' for cross-cleavage cooperation. Instead, their interactions with closely aligned societal groups become less cooperative while relationships with distant groups show reduced conflict.

This finding suggests that economic shocks may intensify partisan divides rather than bridge them, offering new insights into the stability of political representation under stress.