Abstract
Economic voting is multidimensional (covering valence, patrimony and positional dimensions), and a growing number of research contributions have explored the existence and strength of the effect of these dimensions on voting. However, we know comparatively little about the interplay between these dimensions. This article fills that void by focusing on how the interplay between the rise of income inequality (the valence dimension) and redistribution preferences (the positional dimension) influences support for incumbents. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Modules 4 and 5, I find that preferences for income redistribution reduce the likelihood of voters supporting incumbent parties. Modest evidence demonstrates that this relationship is stronger in countries where inequality increased to a greater degree between elections. Voters who want more redistribution tend to re-elect left-wing governments and want to throw out right-wing incumbents. However, rise of inequality hurts both left-wing and right-wing incumbents.
Highlights
The state of the economy can help us understand voting behavior and explain the election performance of incumbent parties
Others have criticized the unidimensionality of economic voting, saying that researchers only focus on valence issues (Lewis-Beck et al 2013)
Is there anything left for economic issues in this equation? Positional economic voting research, we might argue, is sometimes trapped into showing the tautological relationship between the variables and the ideological leanings of political parties
Summary
The state of the economy can help us understand voting behavior and explain the election performance of incumbent parties. The premise that citizens, seeing the economy performing poorly, will tend to throw the rascals out, has been contested, as a normatively appealing but theoretically limiting finding (Hellwig 2012). Another important point of valence economic model criticism is partisan contamination bias, meaning that “inferences about the direction of causality between perceptions of the economy and party support remain questionable” I take income inequality (as the valence dimension) and preferences for redistribution (as a positional issue).
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