Economic Voting Models Research Articles

The Collapse of Economic Voting Behaviour in Turkish Politics

For voters, phenomena such as increasing feelings of nationalism, the transformation of the perception of foreign powers into a political tool by the government, and the pursuit of polarisation politics by making the opposition enemies, push the importance of the economic crisis towards the back of the list of concerns for the voters. The general elections that took place between 1980 and 2018 are examined and the economic voting behaviour is explored in this study, especially in terms of periodical developments in Turkish politics. It is obvious that the economic voting model was an important determinant on the Turkish voters in the elections until 2008. However, ideological factors, strong leadership analysis or other indicators have started to replace the economic voting model in Turkey with serious political changes after 2008. In this context, this study is aimed to make an important contribution by filling the gap in the literature on economic voting in Turkish politics.

Subjective well-being, satisfaction with public services and election outcomes in Turkey

There is an emerging literature to explain the variation in voting behavior by subjective well-being (or ‘happiness’) measures beyond standard economic and financial variables that economic voting models assert. This paper contributes to this new line of research by testing whether subjective well-being indicators are significant predictors of the June 2015 elections in Turkey. Using the 2013 wave of Life Satisfaction Surveys that is representative at the provincial level, our findings indicate that low levels of subjective well-being (‘discontent’) have a strong predictive power on the outcome of elections at the local level, accounting for provincial demographic and socioeconomic covariates, and possible reverse causality. We also use additional questions on satisfaction with public services and find that the Turkish electorate is more responsive to particular policies of the incumbent party rather than general economic conditions, or their general well-being.

Who benefits from the retrospective vote? Bringing in new parties

Democracies across the world have experienced the rise of new political parties. The dominant view of the model of (retrospective) economic voting implicitly assumes that the main beneficiary of electoral change is the established opposition. However, the rise of new political parties affects how we think of retrospective (economic) voting. This article presents a more nuanced picture of electoral change and considers when electoral turnover benefits established opposition parties, and when new political parties. The theoretical model introduces different macro-economic and macro-political motives for electoral turnover. Using a novel dataset on electoral change, covering 59 democracies worldwide, it is found that high levels of corruption discredit the entire political establishment, and promote the rise of new parties. The effect of economic hardship is more nuanced. Low economic growth mainly benefits the established opposition because voters look for an established alternative within the political system. Rising unemployment, by contrast, promotes the rise of new parties.

Brexit and prosperity but defeat: the economic vote conundrum in the 2020 Irish election

ABSTRACT At face, Ireland's economy had staged a remarkable recovery by 2020 since the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis. The economy was the fastest growing in Europe, unemployment had reached record lows, and Ireland's debt was back to its lowest level since 2009. The traditional economic voting model assumes voters punish outgoing governments for poor economic performance by voting against them but rewards incumbents for a sound economy by voting for them. Nevertheless, Irish voters delivered a stunning rebuke to the Fine Gael government in 2020, registering an incumbent administration's sixth-worst performance since 1932, raising questions about the applicability of the economic vote. Using the 2020 Irish National Election Study, our contribution unpacks this apparent puzzle. We uncover that macroeconomic conditions were less rosy than at first sight, a pattern recognised by voters. We find the economic vote was alive and well, with voter economic perceptions, and their views on income redistribution (and taxes/spending) having a potent effect on the vote. Brexit, as an economic issue, however, was not influential in shaping the vote. The Fine Gael challenge, and the answer to the conundrum, was most voters perceived the economy was lackluster and the government was on the wrong side of economic policy preferences of most voters.

When growth is not enough: inequality, economic gains, and executive approval

AbstractA robust economy is assumed to bolster leaders' standing. This ignores how benefits of growth are distributed. Extending the partisan models of economic voting, we theorize executives are more likely rewarded when gains from growth go to their constituents. Analyses of presidential approval in 18 Latin American countries support our pro-constituency model of accountability. When economic inequality is high, growth concentrates among the rich, and approval of right-of-center presidents is higher. Leftist presidents benefit from growth when gains are more equally distributed. Further analyses show growth and inequality inform perceptions of personal finances differently based on wealth, providing a micro-mechanism behind the aggregate findings. Study results imply that the economy is not purely a valence issue, but also a position issue.

It’s NOT the economy when people are dying: accountability for household economic and health outcomes during the pandemic

ABSTRACT Economic voting models usually assume that the economy is usually salient to the public, especially during a recession, yet the public’s attention to the economy is likely to wane when other, more pressing issues are salient. This analysis tests whether health outcomes during the pandemic pushed the economy off the public’s agenda. Cross-sectional survey data from July 2020 show that individuals who experienced a personal economic setback during the first few months of the pandemic did not significantly differ in their evaluations of President Trump from those whose finances had not been similarly affected. Instead, presidential approval was lower among those who had gotten sick/knew someone who had gotten sick or who were afraid of getting sick. Time series analyses confirm the economy’s importance has diminished; President Trump’s approval ratings were less strongly connected to economic outcomes in the post-pandemic period than they were in the first three years he was in office. In the context of a health emergency, the public seems to value minimizing health threats, not limiting the economic fallout from the pandemic and thus the dynamics underlying presidential approval during the pandemic differ from normal times and previous crises.

Boom and bust: Economic voting in Ireland

The global economic crisis presents new challenges for economic voting models. While there is a consensus that economic voting exists, even the most ardent supporters agree that it is a variable force and can only explain a portion of voting behaviour. This article investigates the impact of positive and negative economic performance on voting patterns. The idea that voters are more likely to punish governments for poor economic performance, the grievance asymmetry hypothesis, has found some empirical support, but in their comprehensive review of the economic voting literature, Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier concluded that the evidence of asymmetric economic voting was, at best, mixed. Ireland presents a clear test of the grievance asymmetric economic vote with recent elections taking place against backdrops of some of the highest economic growth rates in the world and then one of the most spectacular economic crashes. We demonstrate that economic shocks matter a great deal; Irish voters like their counterparts elsewhere in crisis hit states are unforgiving. Furthermore, the electoral change at the 2011 election in Ireland was extreme and challenges the consensus that economic voting is a small force.

The Transitional Economic Voting Model Revisited: The Case of Poland 1993–1998

This article evaluates the extent to which the transitional economic voting model that Tucker (2006) developed to explain voting behavior in young postcommunist democracies of Europe applied to Poland in the 1990s. According to Tucker, voting behavior depends on the transitional identity of the political parties and voters’ status of winners or losers of transition. Using the Polish Panel Survey POLPAN and its data on the 1993 and 1998 parliamentary elections, I distinguish economic winners and losers of the transformation by tracing the socioeconomic situation of the same respondents through time. I find that the political situation in Poland during the first years after the transition was not as unstable and chaotic for voters as Tucker assumed. There is little empirical support for the transitional economic voting model in the first years after transition. Winners did not have a higher propensity to vote for reformist parties, and losers were not more likely to vote for old-regime parties.

Merkwürdig oder nicht? What Economic Voting Models and the 2013 Bundestag Elections Have to Say about Each Other

The 2013 Bundestag elections took place at a time when public opinion was strongly focused on a wide range of economic issues. But, given the coalition government and the complex array of policymakers whose hands were on the wheels of the German economy, some economic voting models would predict that the economy would play little role in deciding these elections. In this article, we use a mixture of aggregate and survey data to test what a range of different economic voting models predicted about the 2013 Bundestag elections and the extent to which these predictions were supported. The results from this exercise provide insights not only about the nature of the 2013 elections, but also about the applicability and adaptability of economic voting models to different political and economic circumstances.

Economic crisis, party competence and the economic vote

We look at economic voting during times of financial crisis using individual-level survey data from the 2008 and 2011 Canadian Election Studies. We posit that in times of crisis, the economy’s impact on incumbent voting can be twofold. There is first an impact that is more traditional in nature and based on retrospective assessments of national economic conditions (which are necessarily bad given the crisis context). There is also an impact that is based on perceptions of the parties’ competence at managing the economy. Depending on these perceptions, the competence effect can compensate for incumbent vote losses that might be incurred from bad economic times (traditional effect). In more general terms, looking at competence-based issue ownership allows us to add a neglected valence component to the economic voting model.

The Incumbent Electoral Defeat in the 2011 Spanish National Elections: The Effect of the Economic Crisis in an Ideological Polarized Party System

This article examines the effect of the economic crisis on voting preferences in the 2011 Spanish national election. Specifically we demonstrate that Spanish voters' reactions to the economic crisis were not uniform and that their evaluations of the economic situation and final electoral decisions were conditioned by prior ideological preferences. Our findings have several important consequences for the economic voting model. First, in a more polarized party system how voters evaluate the economic performance of the incumbent is a better predictor of vote choice than evaluations of the economy as a whole. Second, this effect varies depending on where parties are located and competing ideologically. Finally, those effects are more conditional on voters' ideological predispositions than the effects of voters' evaluations of the situation of the economy.

Two types of economic voting: How economic conditions jointly affect vote choice and turnout

The economic voting literature mostly looks at vote choice, ignoring potential effects on turnout. Studies that do focus on the latter often ignore the former, and come to contradictory conclusions. I develop a model of economic voting that jointly incorporates vote choice and abstention due to alienation or indifference. Analyzing ten elections with validated turnout data and conducting empirically informed simulations, I make two contributions. First, I show that “turnout switching” accounts for up to one third of total economic voting. This second type of economic voting is more common when the number of parties is low and responsibility is dispersed. Second, I show that a bad economy moves some people to abstain while having the opposite effect on others. The aggregate effect is ambiguous and related to macro-conditions in a non-linear way. This explains contradictory findings in the literature.

Forecasting Austrian national elections: The Grand Coalition model

Forecasting the outcomes of national elections has become established practice in several democracies. In the present paper, we develop an economic voting model for forecasting the future success of the Austrian ‘grand coalition’, i.e., the joint electoral success of the two mainstream parties SPOE and OEVP, at the 2013 Austrian Parliamentary Elections. Our main argument is that the success of both parties is strongly tied to the accomplishments of the Austrian system of corporatism, that is, the Social Partnership (Sozialpartnerschaft), in providing economic prosperity. Using data from Austrian national elections between 1953 and 2008 (n=18), we rely on the following predictors in our forecasting model: (1) unemployment rates, (2) previous incumbency of the two parties, and (3) dealignment over time. We conclude that, in general, the two mainstream parties benefit considerably from low unemployment rates, and are weakened whenever they have previously formed a coalition government. Further, we show that they have gradually been losing a good share of their voter basis over recent decades.

Ekonomické hlasování a odpovědnost vládních stran ve střední Evropě

The article presents economic voting theory and its application to the study of electoral behaviour in four Central European countries. The theoretical part describes the reward-punishment model of economic voting and its predictions for electoral behaviour in countries with coalition governance and in internationally open economies during the global economic crisis. The analytical part investigates the existence and features of economic voting (as a P-function) in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Hypotheses about the existence of economic voting in these countries, the higher economic accountability of more responsible coalition partners, and the lower level of economic voting under the perceived influence of the EU on the domestic economy are tested using OLS and binary logistic analysis of European Election Study data (2004 and 2009). As the results show, economic voting was only detected in Hungary (2004 and 2009) and Slovakia (2004). The analysis indicates that, in general, almost all Prime ministers’ parties bear a greater degree of economic accountability; meanwhile, perceptions of EU economic responsibility had no influence on the popularity of government parties in 2009.

Economic voting in Sweden 1985–2010

Despite the fact that Sweden has the world’s second longest time-series of national election Studies, the standard model of micro-level economic voting has only been occasionally applied in Sweden. This study presents a long-term perspective on economic voting in Sweden and analyzes to what extent economic perceptions influence governmental support in general elections in Sweden at the eight latest parliamentary elections, 1985--2010. To this end, this article makes use of the rolling two-wave panels of the Swedish national election studies and estimates the probability of voting for the government depending on economic perceptions, previous vote, ideology and a set of SES controls. The results show that Swedish voting behaviour is no exception to that of most western democracies; subjective economic evaluations of the Swedish economy systematically influence government support. If voters feel the economy is improving they are more likely to vote for the incumbent government than when they feel the economy is getting worse.

Predictably Unpredictable: The Effects of Conflict Involvement on the Error Variance of Vote Models

International conflict has profoundly influenced election outcomes in some cases, and in other cases has had a minimal impact. This article develops a theory that the increased salience of foreign policy issues following periods of international hostilities increases the variance of government parties’ vote shares. In elections following conflict, the ability to accurately predict election outcomes using traditional economic voting models is reduced. The article provides evidence from advanced democracies in the post-World War II era that being involved in international disputes increases the predictive error of vote shares. More substantively, vote choice models should model the role of exogenous shocks such as international conflict in order to avoid making misleading inferences. The study concludes by discussing the meaningful implications for various theories of voting behavior and international conflict.

The meaning and use of subjective perceptions in studies of economic voting

In this essay, we discuss the usefulness and meaning of empirical models of economic voting that rely on measures of individual economic perceptions. The effort is motivated by the recent reappearance of a long-standing critique of the use of economic perceptions data in individual level economic voting studies, with a consequent call for the use of aggregate data, which suggests that variation in perceptions must reflect noise or error because there can be only one “real” state of the national economy applicable to all respondents in any national survey. We show, however, that this critique (and its corresponding prescriptions for how to specify empirical models of economic voting) is based on a misunderstanding about (1) the theoretical concepts called for by the leading theories of economic voting (and that we should be trying to measure), (2) the nature of the economy that individuals can actually observe (it is a distribution of possible states, not a point) and, consequently, (3) the interpretation of correlations between individual economic perceptions and electoral support.

Changing Dynamic of Electoral Trends in British India: A Case Study of Elections (1946) and Referendum (1947) in NWFP

61 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVI, No.3, Spring 2013 Changing Dynamic of Electoral Trends in British India: A Case Study of Elections (1946) and Referendum (1947) in NWFP *Muhammad Shakeel Ahmad *Fazal Rabbi Theoretical Frame Work Electoral politics is the vital part of political participation in affairs of any state elections operates and how people behave. This study investigated citizens’ interaction with each other. Electoral politics in NWFP1 during the 1946 elections and referendum in 1947 had different dimensions of a sociopolitical nature, tenants-landlords relations, and parties’ electoral play. During 1946 elections, All India National Congress with the help of Khudai Khidmatgars2 used influential people in the Frontier society to win elections. These influential people used Congress to obtain larger benefits in their constituencies from district administration to serve their own interests. During the elections, socio-economic status, religion, family influence, and the state of the national, local and provincial affairs affected political *Muhammad Shakeel Ahmad is an Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad. He did his PhD (Electoral Politics in NWFP: 1988-1999) from the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. He also worked in the department of Pakistan Studies, Allam Iqbal Open University, Islamabad 2007-2011. *Fazal Rabbi is a PhD scholar in the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. His dissertation dealt with “Pakistan United States Relations in the Post-Cold war”. He worked with the Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 1 NWFP (North West Frontier Province) of Pakistan is now renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the 18th constitutional amendment. 2 Khudai Khidmatgars means the Servants of God, was a nonviolent civil disobedience movement against British Rule. The movement was started by Pashtuns under the leadership of Bacha Khan (Abdul Gaffar Khan), in 1930. 62 attitudes, however people’s conscious feelings about parties, issues and candidates determine of voting behavior.3 Throughout one’s life a variety of influences determine political outlook. It was assumed that parents transmitted their partisanship to their children through the process of political socialization.4 In the NWFP paternal political influence on electoral politics is deeply rooted in Pakhto (Pakhtuns codes of life).5 This paternal influence shows itself in the younger generations in Pakhtun society6 . Rapidly changed voting behavior during 1946 elections and referendum in 1947 were analyzed on the basis of four models. The Sociological model, known as School of Columbia7 , is focused on the influences of social factors. During the 1946 elections in NWFP it seemed that voters would vote for a candidate that looked like them and shared ethnicity, religion and social-economic status. The psychosocial model also identified as School of Michigan,8 and assumed that party identification is the main factor behind voting behaviour. The Michigan Model is a party identification model. People vote because they belong to a certain party. The Rational choice9 theory, or model also referred to as a model of economic voting, or even as the School of Rochester, whose landmark work is the work of Anthony Downs (1957) stressed variables such as rationality, choice, uncertainty and information. The major problem with this model is the amount of information needed for it to work. The Retrospective Model10 , has voters vote on past and present aspects of the incumbent government. The popularity of the current government is apparently important. 3 Robert S. Erikson, Norman R. Luttbeg and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion: Its origins , content and impact (Toronto: John Wiley and Sons, 1980), 301. 4 Ibid, 51. 5 Pakhto is the code of life of Pakhtun society in which honour, dignity, spirituality, nationalism are the main pillars. 6 Ajmal Khattak, Interview by author, Nowshera, March 23, 2005. 7 Columbia School Model is based on Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice; How the Voter makes up his mind in a Presidential Campaign, New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. 8 Michigan Model is based on the study of Angus Campbell, Philip E Converse, Warren E Miller, Donald E Stokes, The American Voter, New York: Wiley & Sons, 1960. 9 Rational choice theory is based on Anthony Downs...

Economic Voting in South Korea: Pocketbook or Sociotropic?

AbstractUsing 2003 Asian Barometer Survey study data, this paper examines the economic voting model in the 2002 presidential election in South Korea. The core emphasis of the paper is on an investigation of the relative effects of different dimensions/scopes of economic evaluations on voting behavior, namely whether one form of assessment (e.g., pocketbook vs. sociotropic) can have similar consequences for electoral participation as others. The findings indicate that the overall economy is salient for Koreans to shape their political choices. In other words, voting behavior in Korea depends on how she or he thinks the national economy has been for the past five years. Also found is that voters’ perceptions of their own personal financial situations did not matter much as a predictor of voter choice.

Conclusion: Thinking about models of economic voting in hard times

The economic voting literature mostly looks at vote choice, ignoring potential effects on turnout. Studies that do focus on the latter often ignore the former, and come to contradictory conclusions. I develop a model of economic voting that jointly incorporates vote choice and abstention due to alienation or indifference. Analyzing ten elections with validated turnout data and conducting empirically informed simulations, I make two contributions. First, I show that “turnout switching” accounts for up to one third of total economic voting. This second type of economic voting is more common when the number of parties is low and responsibility is dispersed. Second, I show that a bad economy moves some people to abstain while having the opposite effect on others. The aggregate effect is ambiguous and related to macro-conditions in a non-linear way. This explains contradictory findings in the literature.