When ideological lenses crack. The joint effect of the Great Recession and clarity of government responsibility on economic assessments

Abstract

Recent studies have found that ideology has less influence on economic evaluations in tough economic times. This article addresses whether this influence is equally constrained by clarity of government responsibility. With a macro-analysis spanning 2004 to 2015 in the EU-15, it demonstrates that differences in economic assessments between ideological groups are less pronounced in countries with blurred responsibility. Also shedding light on how the economic and political environments interplay, it evidences that as the economy deteriorates, ideological differences in economic assessments tend to decrease in countries with single-party governments (i.e., high-clarity situations), while they remain steady in multi-party governments (low-clarity situations). This article concludes by suggesting that the effect of economic downturns on ideological conditioning can be dampened by the political context.