Economists and electorates: The subjective economy of governing party support in Canada

Abstract

AbstractThis paper uses newly available Canadian data to address long‐standing debates on the rationality of the political economy of party support. We find that the subjective economic variable driving governing party support is sociotropic, not egocentric, and, pace recent American and British studies, prospections do not dominate retrospections. Rather, models using national economic evaluations encompass rivals employing national expectations, personal expectations and perceived trends in personal expectations. Egocentric considerations are not irrelevant; rather, their effects on party support are indirect. We argue that these findings are consistent with an image of voters whose party‐support decisions are governed by a ‘rough‐and‐ready’ rationality appropriate to the information available to them and the politico‐economic systems of contemporary Western democracies.