41 society to turn out suggests that a state that fails to respond successfully to protests risks a generalised loss of popular legitimacy. Several of the case studies briefly sketched the pathway from lost legitimacy to deeper political crisis. The present report scratches the surface of complex political dynamics, but points to the role of a cost of living crisis in accelerating and exacerbating underlying conditions. Protestors’ grievances about economic issues were often causally linked to perceived failures of political governance. Accusations of corruption and collusion between political and economic elites, and the detachment and unaccountability of the ruling class were heard across multiple contexts. More analysis is needed about the political effects of these crises, but there are signs that parties on the far-right and on the left or centre-left are reaping electoral gains from the cost of living crisis, as ruling centrist parties are seen to have failed to discipline energy markets or support citizens. For instance, in Spain, the far right party Vox called for nationwide protests in March over the rising costs of living, with thousands of protesters gathering in Madrid(France 24 2022). In Ecuador and India, protesters denounced their conservative heads of state for failing to protect against rising costs, with protesters in Ecuador specifically rejecting proposed fuel-subsidy cuts and the purported neo-liberal agenda of President Lasso. In Panama, former President Ricardo Martinelli claimed he would run for president in 2024 to represent‘all independent Panamanians,’ seemingly attempting to capitalise on the unrest sweeping the country in the summer 2022. In October 2022, German left-wing union workers and far-right political parties protested simultaneously but separately, mostly expressing similar grievances over the high cost of living (Freiheit 2022). The spectrum of claims from different ideological positions indicates political entrepreneurs regard denouncing rising costs as a politically useful position that allows for solidarity with the struggles of the common citizen. The more detailed country case studies found that faced with broad and sustained protest about the cost of living, some governments caved in and paused or even reversed subsidy cuts, as occurred in Ecuador. In general, however, few governments appeared to have had the room for manoeuvre, and even in the face of protracted unrest, persisted in price adjustments that were deemed necessary either because of the rising cost of commodity imports, or to meet IMF conditions(Panama, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone). Several countries that faced significant energy-related unrest also saw significant political turmoil at the very top of government. This indicates that political instability may be linked – albeit not always directly or in any simple causal way – to popular discontent around the cost of living. Among the countries with at least 100 protests, Pakistan, the UK, Lebanon and Sri Lanka all experienced unexpected leadership turnovers as leaders failed to persuade the public or other political elites that they were capable of governing. In other countries that had hundreds of protests such as Haiti and Iran, discontent has escalated into far broader uprisings that continue to hit the news headlines as of December 2022. In functioning democracies, incumbent governments in the US, Sweden, France and Italy faced serious electoral competition from far-right politics. Implications The food, energy and cost of living protests of 2022 were so widespread as to have become almost unnoticeable, even as several mutated into broader political turmoil. This global wave raises important questions about the capacity of the global system to protect citizens against mass economic crisis, but even more directly about the mechanisms of accountability through which people can hold governments to account when those governments are themselves dependent on the volatilities of the global economy. One possibility entry point is for multilateral agencies to become more accountable to people, strengthening their engagement with citizens over projects and economic reform agendas likely to expose them to such shocks. And, if the risk of food, energy and cost of