Performance pressure: Patterns of partisanship and the economic vote

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated a weakening identification of voters with political parties in Western Europe over the last three decades. We argue that the growing proportion of voters with weak or no party affinities has strong implications for economic voting in systems with high clarity of government responsibility. When the proportion of voters with partisan affinities is low, the effect of economic performance on election outcomes is strong; when partisans proliferate, economic conditions matter less. Employing Eurobarometer data for eight European countries from 1976 to 1992, we demonstrate this inverse association between partisanship and the economic vote. This finding implies a growing effect for the objective economy on the vote in Europe but a declining effect in the increasingly partisan United States. It also explains two puzzles in the economic voting and electoral forecasting literatures. First, weak results in aggregate level cross-national studies of economic voting may be attributable to characteristics of the electorate, not just to clarity of responsibility of the government. Second, the over-prediction of incumbent vote share in recent U.S. election forecasts may stem from rising partisanship.