Clarity of responsibility and economic evaluations

Abstract

Convincing scholarly evidence shows the economy directs the mass public's support for parties and leaders. But the extent of economic voting depends on a country's “clarity of responsibility.” According to several scholars, political clarity is important because it determines whether people link national economic performance to the parties in government. This study explores a potential second role, which involves how clarity moderates the strength of partisan-motivated reasoning. Clarity of responsibility makes the economy more or less central to party politics. It could therefore moderate people's motivation to rationalize economic facts in a biased direction. Using cross-national survey data, this study tests this possibility by examining economic disagreement between people who support a party in government and those who support the opposition. Results from a Bayesian multilevel regression show that partisan disagreement varies systematically with clarity of responsibility. This finding raises new questions about cross-national differences in economic voting.