Economic Voting and Political Sophistication

Abstract

The authors reply here to Godbout and Bélanger's critique of their work on political sophistication and economic voting. Principally, the authors stress the importance of using contemporaneous economic assessment and candidate preference measures in assessing their relationship. They also emphasize the empirical support for their key contentions that less sophisticated citizens tend not to credit/blame government for their own economic circumstances, and that more sophisticated citizens tend to focus on actors other than the president when attributing responsibility for the national economy. Finally, the authors stress the variety of contexts, both outside the United States and outside the domain of economic voting, in which their theory has found support.