Generosity in unemployment benefits (but not pensions, sick pay, or income inequality) helps explain over-time within-country variation in satisfaction with democracy. This effect is relatively stable across individuals with different interests and values. However, it depends on crucial aspects of the informational context, such as real-world economic conditions and the extent and nature of election campaign attention. A number of concrete hypoteses on this theme are developed. They are then tested using three-level modeling of Eurobarometer data from fifteen countries over forty years. Overall, the once clearly positive effect of unemplyoment benefit generosity has declined over time. Further, the results suggest that the long-term rise in unemployment in Western Europe, together with changes in the agendas and information presented to voters in election campaigns, may have assisted in the birth of "dissatisfied democrats". This may have happened through direct effects of contextual variables on democratic dissatisfaction, but also indirectly in that the broad informational context appears to have deflated the previously legitimizing force of unemployment protection policies.
