Economic Voting Research Articles

The Great Lockdown and Economic Voting: Estimating the Impact of the COVID-19 Recession on the 2020 US Presidential Election

The 2020 US presidential election was won by Democrat challenger Joseph Biden over Republican incumbent Donald Trump and was contested during the global Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Unemployment increased sharply during the pandemic but was followed by a large federal relief package. We investigate whether there was economic voting in the 2020 election, that is, whether the increased unemployment rate and the subsequent government response during the pandemic affected Trump’s vote negatively or positively overall. We examine 48 states (by excluding Alaska, Hawaii, and DC). Using a triple-differences (DDD) model (that is, examining changes in a candidate’s county-level vote-share depending on the change in unemployment and historical Republican-Democrat partisanship), we predict what would have happened if the increase in unemployment rate in between March and October 2020 had been more modest. Although many states show significant negative expected impacts on the Trump vote, we predict that only when when the unemployment rates experience little change during the pandemic would overall results have swung in the incumbent’s favour – and only then in Arizona and Georgia.

Predictors of mayoral reelection in Romanian local elections. Long-term analysis 1996–2016

This study aims to analyze the mayoral reelection rates in Romanian local elections between 1996 and 2016, a period marked by significant economic and political transitions. Given the post-communist context, understanding these dynamics is crucial for grasping Romania's evolving electoral behavior. In order to evaluate the dynamics of mayoral reelection rates in post-communist Romania, the primary research objective of the study consists in the assessment of the correlation between electoral participation and preferences for the incumbent mayors. In addition to this research objective, the paper aims to evaluate the impact of the ideological polarization in shaping electoral decision. An important research objective highlights the association between electorate's education level and political preferences for the incumbent political parties. Besides these objectives, the paper stresses the importance of the economic factors for predicting the dynamics of Romanian’ mayoral reelection rates. Using a quantitative research design based on nonlinear statistical regressions, the study highlights the importance of both ideological and economic vote in mayoral reelection. Moreover, statistical results indicate that both the interactions between left-right ideological polarization, secondary education and economic efficiency are significant predictors for explaining Romania's electoral behavior over time. The novelty of the study lies in the use of these interactions between ideology, education and economy for providing a deeper perspective on the mayoral reelection dynamics. These empirical findings are relevant not only for scholars but also for political decision-makers or electoral strategists, providing evidence related with electoral behavior in Romanian local elections.

Electoral Accountability in a Multilevel Governance Context: Economic Voting and Gubernatorial Support in Latin America

Electoral Accountability in a Multilevel Governance Context: Economic Voting and Gubernatorial Support in Latin America

Mitigating the Political Cost of Financial Crisis with Blame Avoidance Discourse: The Case of Turkey

How do centralized governments mitigate the political cost of severe financial crises? The economic voting scholarship has established that the clarity of responsibility, i.e., government accountability for economic conditions to the mass public, is a necessity for electoral reward or punishment for economic performance. On the one hand, political centralization, which reduces the number of veto players, may increase the visibility of the role of the executive in policy success or failure. On the other hand, it allows an uncontested blame avoidance discourse, especially when accompanied with democratic backsliding. Furthermore, the recent backlash against globalization has enabled blame shifting to international actors in many countries. Against this theoretical framework, we comparatively analyze the responsibility attribution discourses for the 1994, 2001, and 2018-2022 financial crises in the statements of incumbent presidents, ministers, and parliament members of Turkey. We find that while blame avoidance discursive strategies have been attempted in all three cases, the responsibility attribution for the 1994 and 2001 crises mostly targeted the executive. In contrast, for the ongoing crisis, the responsibility discourse is dominated with blaming international political economy factors, creating ambiguity, and targeting domestic non-governmental actors.

Popular autocrats: why do voters support Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary? A quantitative analysis

AbstractAuthoritarian populism has become an increasingly prevalent subtype of hybrid regime and is characterized by weakened democratic institutions and a leader who relies on populist appeals. Authoritarian populist regimes limit citizens’ freedom, undermine accountability and the rule of law, and are likely to be more corrupt than democratic regimes. Nevertheless, certain authoritarian populist regimes appear to enjoy broad popular support. Based on the European Social Survey database and my calculations of respondents’ personal income tax rates, I investigate the factors that influenced voters’ support for Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary from 2010 to 2020, which may be considered an exemplary case of an autocratic populist regime. The analysis shows that voters’ support for the government was influenced by their perceptions of the economy and government performance, political beliefs (i.e., policy congruence and ideology), and basic human values (i.e., self-transcendence and conservation). By contrast, changes in voters’ individual economic conditions were not found to be associated with their support for the government. The findings indicate that, in addition to explanations of government support that specifically focus on hybrid regimes, economic voting theory, which originated from and has typically been applied in democratic contexts, also provides viable explanations for understanding support for authoritarian populist regimes. More broadly, the findings also lend support to the altruistic and expressive voter hypotheses.

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.

Does Religious Identity Moderate Economic Voting? Evidence from Indonesia

Scholars have long suggested that economic voting is contingent on political factors, but how social identity contributes to such contingent economic voting has been overlooked. While the literature suggests the presence of direct function of religion on voting decisions, we are not sure about religion’s other functions. By treating religion as a social identity, this article seeks to uncover a moderating function of religion on economic voting. It draws on an embedded exit poll survey in Indonesian gubernatorial and mayoral elections in 2020, covering 9,400 respondents. This paper finds that the self-identification of religious identity moderates economic perception in the voting decision. Although the findings show strong evidence of economic voting, they challenge previous studies arguing that religion is a weak predictor in a new democracy with a Muslim-majority population. This paper contributes to the literature on economic voting and the role of religion in the voting decision.

Economic voting behavior: The peak‐end growth rule

AbstractThis paper introduces the peak‐end rule to economic voting, finding that voters focus on peak and end economic growth when evaluating incumbents. Cross‐national data from 595 elections in 70 countries (1960–2020) shows that the average of the highest GDP growth rate during the term and the growth rate in the election year positively impacts incumbent vote share, with peak growth having a stronger effect. Instrumental variable analysis addresses endogeneity. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that less‐educated voters rely more on the peak‐end rule. The findings contribute to understanding voters' behavioral patterns and improving democratic accountability.

Is unequal representation the consequence of different voting behavior across income groups?

Extant literature documents the unequal representation of the interests of low- and high-income groups in democracies. One potential explanation for this phenomenon is the electoral behavior of different groups of voters. If affluent citizens base their vote decisions more strongly on policy considerations, while the less affluent rely on forms of electoral support that are less strongly conditioned by policy or performance evaluations, this pattern could influence the ability and willingness of political elites to represent low-income citizens. We make use of the integrated CSES election data to study how, across a diverse set of countries, income levels affect the criteria voters rely on when voting: namely, proximity voting, valence considerations, and economic voting. Overall, our findings show no meaningful differences in voting criteria across income groups, nor consequences for party systems. These findings have important implications for the literature on unequal representation, as they rule out the common narrative that the affluent cast more sophisticated vote decisions.

Second-order Economic Voting in Elections to the European Parliament

When examining citizens’ behaviour in elections to the European Parliament (EP), second order elections (SOE) and economic voting (EV) have overlooked each other as alien traditions. However, they should not be seen as incompatible: voters may use EP elections to support national incumbents but, at the same time, this support may be the result of an economic assessment. This paper blends both frameworks and finds that, even though EP elections are not intended to evaluate domestic politics, voters use them to reward or punish national incumbents (i.e. SOE) for the state of the economy (i.e. EV); a behaviour referred to here as ‘second-order economic voting’. The predominance of second-order EV is relevant for EU politics. If EP elections enhance national incumbents’ accountability while the European executive remains unacknowledged, this could be disturbing for European economic institutions.

The Italian payback effect: the causal impact of the great recession on political discontent

ABSTRACT Grounding on the theories of economic voting and political opposition, this paper investigates whether the Italian Local Labour Markets (LLMs) most affected by the Great Recession reacted in the ballot box voting against the domestic institutions or in favour of anti-European parties. We exploit a recent econometric technique in the counterfactual framework, which adopts a non-parametric generalisation of the difference-in-differences estimator. Our findings show a causal negative impact on the share of Berlusconi’s party, the incumbent party during the crisis, statistically significant in those LLMs with the lowest institutional quality and in the Centre and in the Islands of Italy. We find no causal effect on the anti-European vote whatsoever. People living in the LLMs that suffered the most the effects of the Great Recession used their vote to harm the party in charge, which they deemed responsible for the economic consequences, with a payback effect.

Economic voting in the 2023 Turkish general election

ABSTRACT The Turkish economy presented a complicated picture ahead of the 2023 election, with significant currency depreciation and soaring inflation yet robust growth and stable employment levels. How did voters’ economic perceptions shape election results in such a context? Drawing on Turkish Election Study surveys, this study reaches two main conclusions. First, while the average evaluation of the economy in the electorate was quite poor, there is a sharp divergence across incumbent supporters and others: The incumbent Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) supporters’ evaluations have changed little since the previous election in 2018, yet those of other voters have deteriorated significantly. Second, the opposition seems to have failed in convincing large parts of the electorate that they would manage the economy better than Erdoğan. Overall, economic voting appears to have worked as expected, and the unwavering economic evaluations of likely AKP voters and the perceived incompetence of the opposition seem to have helped Erdoğan to win another term.

How the media matters for the economic vote: Evidence from Britain

Existing research finds that economic news can influence how citizens evaluate their governments, but the relative importance of different channels through which this effect arises, and how this may vary across contexts, remains unclear. Drawing on media dependency theory, I argue that we should observe larger media effects on citizens’ economic evaluations during periods of economic stability than during crises. Moreover, during crises, we should observe larger media effects on citizens’ evaluations of governing parties’ responsibility for, and handling of, the economic situation, than on their subjective economic evaluations. Additionally, these effects should be stronger among governing party supporters. Analysis of British public opinion leading up to and following the 2007–8 global financial crisis provides empirical support for this theory. These findings have implications for our understanding of how the media matters for the economic vote, as well as voters’ ability to use elections as instruments of accountability during crises.

Economic voting goes local: evidence from the Italian regions

AbstractThis article investigates the pattern of economic voting at the regional level in Italy. It focuses on the elections held in 18 out of 20 Italian regions from 1995 to 2020. Retrospective voting is examined by using the theory of economic voting, measured at the subnational level. By providing some inferential models and controlling for the impact of phases of recession, this article tests the hypothesis whereby the incumbent regional government is rewarded (or punished) by voters in the event of a good (or poor) state of the regional economy. It mainly considers macroeconomic variables, focusing on the relationship between the unemployment rate (at both national and regional levels) and the electoral performance of the incumbent executive. The empirical analysis shows that, particularly during periods of ‘quiet politics’, economic voting also occurs at the local level and thus the regional unemployment rate affects regional rulers' electoral outcomes.

Revisiting Clarke and Stewart’s (1995) investigation of PM approval and vote intentions in the UK

Economic Evaluations, Prime Ministerial Approval and Governing Party Support: Rival Models Reconsidered by Harold D. Clarke and Marianne Stewart (1995) makes major contributions both substantive and methodological. Substantively, the article contributes to literatures on economic voting and the presidentialization of British politics. Methodologically, the paper is a model of how to conduct cointegration and error correction analyses between closely related political time series. In all, the authors established a long-run equilibrium between prime ministerial approval and vote intentions for the governing party. The two variables may diverge for short periods, but vote intentions will always revert back to a level that is in line with the popularity of the PM. We extend Clarke and Stewart’s data to the present day and examine how the PM-vote intention link has endured while the effects of the economy on vote intentions have varied. We also show that, while time series analysis in political science has undergone several revolutions, Clarke and Stewart’s process of conducting two-step cointegration analysis (Engle and Granger, 1987) stands up 30 years later as a blueprint for how to investigate long-run relationships with political data.

The dichotomy of electoral choice in fragmented societies: Prospects of 2023 Nigerian general elections

Elections in fragmented states are usually contested along the divisive lines present within the geo polity, and this plays an important role in the emergence of political leaders. Nigeria, one of the most heterogeneous countries in the world, has exhibited predominantly ethnic voting since the consolidation of its fourth republic, and this has contributed to mixed socioeconomic and political fortunes. Using a qualitative approach based on secondary sources such as, books, journals, articles, this study highlights that mature democracies exhibit retrospective voting, through which objective scrutiny of government performance in the economy and other aspects of the state is done to determine whether to reward or punish political leaders at the polls. The limitations of primal and ethnic voting considerations in Nigeria, visible in development outcomes, call for a new guardrail to electoral choice. This paper argues the need for economic voting to predominate the ethnic considerations that determine electoral choice, as this can guarantee developmental outputs, and ensure political accountability that benefit the state. This study concludes that, if Nigeria is to experience significant changes in its fortunes going forward, the 2023 elections must change the narrative from non-evaluative considerations to evaluative voting considerations, for positive socioeconomic dividends.

Saving lives or saving the economy? Support for the incumbent during the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia

ABSTRACT The spread of COVID-19 sparked debates about whether incumbents should focus on saving lives or the economy. Politicians’ decisions in this dilemma could determine whether they remain in office. “Saving the economy” is predicted to affect re-election chances positively in economic voting theory. However, a public health crisis can shift the electorate’s preferences in favor of expanding healthcare support at the cost of the economy. We examine whether there is a trade-off between “saving lives” and “saving the economy” for the incumbent in receiving higher political support. Based on two experiments conducted in Russia, we measure if individuals are more likely to support, vote for, and extend the power of the incumbent based on their policies. Although both experimental factors encouraged support, the economy-driven policy had a larger effect on voting than the healthcare-driven one.

How does economic openness affect the relative economic voting?

AbstractContrary to conventional wisdom, globalization strengthens the linkage between the economy (across-border benchmarked measures) and vote choice, thereby facilitating electoral accountability by enriching the information available to the public. In the pre-globalization era, ordinary citizens had difficulty assessing domestic economic conditions in a comparative setting, in part because they were less exposed to information concerning other countries’ economic performance. However, globalization has provided citizens with excellent sources for comparisons in the form of media coverage. Moreover, openness results in a reduction in relative variance of exogenous rather than competence shocks. Using media-guided comparisons from 29 countries since the 1980s, this study finds that relative economic performance significantly affects citizens’ vote choices when their economy is highly integrated into the world market.

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.

Towards a predominant party system: the May 2023 election in Greece

ABSTRACT The parliamentary election of May 2023 in Greece is historic because it was the first held with a proportional representation electoral system in decades. Notably, there was an unprecedented 20-point difference between the winner, New Democracy, and the second party, SYRIZA. Thus, the election marks a shift towards a predominant party system, which is accompanied by a decrease in all relevant institutionalisation indices, somewhat reversing a period of stabilisation and a return of two-partyism. Empirical evidence points towards economic voting as the main determinant for New Democracy’s second consecutive win, albeit in a media environment of waning pluralism.