Economic decline fuels resentment towards immigrants and minority communities. Government becomes increasingly repressive to keep tensions from boiling over into riots and perhaps worse.
This is why countries are obsessed with growth - many things can be papered over with sufficient growth.
Call me crazy, but it seems probably unwise for any nation to be perpetually operating under "we're a bad recession away from ethno-nationalists starting a race war" as a default state of affairs.
Yes, but my point is that the people that pose the greatest threat to stability are the ethno nationalists. The UK has them violently rioting just last year.
