Presidential Approval Ratings Research Articles

Uruguay 2018: A Year of Mixed Signals and Open Questions

Uruguay faced significant headwinds in 2018. The Frente Amplio is confronting a slowing economy, and its most challenging election yet. Overall, economic growth is positive, but reduced from the previous year; inflation, unemployment, and the deficit are above target rates. After the loss of a deputy in 2016, the Frente returned to a strong legislative efficiency rate in 2018. However, the party remains vexed by President Tabare Vazquez’s ever lower approval rating, which dipped to a nadir of 30% by year’s end. The party’s challenges are extensive. Economic stagnation, low presidential approval ratings, a slim parliamentary majority, and disaffected voters fuse to create substantial unpredictability for the 2019 elections and the country’s future political configuration.

Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump's Trade Wars

Are retaliatiory tariffs politically targeted and, if so, are they effective? Do countries designing a retaliation response face a trade-off between maximizing political targeting and mitigating domestic economic harm? We use the recent trade escalation between the US, China, the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries to answer these questions. We find substantial evidence that retaliation was directly targeted to areas that swung to Donald Trump in 2016 (but not to other Republican candidates running for office in the same year). We further assess whether retaliation was optimally chosen using a novel simulation approach constructing counterfactual retaliation responses. For China and particularly, for Mexico and Canada, the chosen retaliation appears suboptimal: there exist alternative retaliation bundles that would have produced a higher degree of political targeting, while posing a lower risk to damage the own economy. We further present evidence that retaliation produces economic shocks: US exports on goods subject to retaliation declined by up to USD 15.28 billion in 2018 and export prices have dropped significantly. Lastly, we find some evidence suggesting that retaliation is effective: in areas exposed to retaliation Republican candidates fared worse in the 2018 Midterm elections, and similarly Presidential approval ratings, especially among Democrats, have declined.

Aprobar al Presidente. Una comparación entre Felipe Calderón y Enrique Peña Nieto

La aprobación pública del Presidente juega un papel fundamental en el poder y la legitimidad con los que cuenta y en el éxito potencial que pueden tener sus decisiones de política. Este trabajo analiza y compara los determinantes de la aprobación presidencial de dos presidentes mexicanos, a saber: Felipe Calderón y Enrique Peña Nieto. Los datos que utilizo son dos oleadas de la Encuesta de las Américas 2008 y 2014. Entre los hallazgos más importantes, encuentro que, por un lado, los temas que prevalecieron en la prensa (los cuales, de algún modo, son los mismos que predominaron en los discursos presidenciales) coinciden de manera significativa con aquellos que los ciudadanos perciben como el asunto más importante para ellos. Por otro, aun con presidentes distintos, inmersos en coyunturas distintas, el tema económico es el que más pesa en la evaluación de su desempeño. Con todo, el tema de la inseguridad y el de la corrupción aparecen y permanecen durante los dos sexenios como temas que se mantienen con un efecto significativo en la ecuación de la aprobación presidencial.

The de-emphasis of sampling error in coverage of presidential approval ratings

This study extends research into problems in handling sampling error within polls by examining coverage of President Obama’s approval ratings in three major newspapers over a five-year period. Results indicate support for hypotheses suggesting that, when confronted with poll results that could be explained by sampling error alone, journalists will instead emphasize those changes or differences.

Gendered Opportunities and Constraints: How Executive Sex and Approval Influence Executive Decree Issuance

Do female executives exercise the authority of their office distinctly from their male counterparts? Anecdotal evidence suggests women legislators are likely to govern in a more consensual manner than men. Yet there has been little systematic research extending such claims to women in executive office. Using an original data set, we evaluate one aspect of policy agenda setting—rates of executive decree issuance—among four male–female pairs of Latin American presidents between 2000 and 2014. Female presidents are generally less prone to rule by decree, but this relationship is conditioned by presidential popularity. Female executives with high presidential approval ratings are less likely to rule via unilateral action than similarly popular male executives, but the gendered differences in decree issuance disappear when executives possess low approval ratings. Our findings have implications for understanding the potential benefits of feminine leadership styles for executive–legislative relations and good governance.

México 2016: El declive de la confianza institucional

Mexico finished 2016 in worse shape than it started: not only did national indicators wors­en, mainly in terms of violence and social unrest, but the country also faced an increasingly hostile international climate characterized by a volatile economy with low oil prices, a de­preciating peso, and the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections. Conse­quently, the year ended with presidential approval ratings at an all-time low, widespread and unchecked corruption, and increasing concerns about the government’s legitimacy and the future of democracy in Mexico.

Chile 2016: ¿El nadir de la legitimidad democrática?

This article argues that the legitimacy of the political system is currently at its lowest point since the return to democracy. Presidential approval ratings dipped to a record low in 2016. The year also saw the highest levels of electoral absenteeism and distrust in the three branch­es of government, and the lowest levels of identification with political parties. This low legit­imacy of the political system can be attributed to cyclical —governmental mismanagement and corruption scandals— and underlying causes —interpersonal mistrust, detachment from the political activity and insulated elites—. If these trends continue, we may witness a transformation of the party system, the emergence of populist movements and leaders, and the erosion of the quality of Chilean democracy.

The Political Consequences of Ethnic Tension: Theory and Evidence

By counting the number of articles published in major US newspapers containing carefully selected keywords, we construct a time varying measure of ethnic tension. Then, we empirically test the predictions of a theoretical model by using the aforementioned measure, and investigate how ethnic tension affects presidential approval ratings by different ethnic groups. Our results show that while ethnic tension decreases the approval by white voters, the opposite is true for the approval by African American voters. Further scrutiny reveals that this may be explained by the fact that government transfers to African Americans increase as a result of higher ethnic tension.

Political and economic accountability in a delegative democracy

Recently, economic accountability theory as a means by which to hold political leaders accountable in the industrialized world has been generalized in transitional democracies. The theory advances how mass publics in young democracies evaluate and assess the performance of chief executives based on sociotropic or pocketbook economic evaluations and the occurrence of pivotal political events. The study finds that self-placement on poverty among Filipinos and primordial assessments of hunger are predictors of presidential approval. Pivotal political events involving attempted coups, corrupt practices and executive level malfeasance are not likely to affect presidential approval ratings over time. Furthermore, changes in the national economy have no association with Philippine presidential approval ratings from 1986–2009. The results of the study suggest that political and economic theories of accountability as applied to the developing world should be reassessed by taking into account the non-institutionalization of party systems, strong executive structures, and the politics of personalism, patronage and patrimonialism.

Terrorism and Public Opinion: The Effects of Terrorist Attacks on the Popularity of the President of the United States

ABSTRACTThis article uses a large-n dataset to investigate the effect of terrorist attacks with American victims on the popularity of the U.S. president. The study uses two broad theoretical frameworks to analyze this effect, the score-keeping framework and the rally-effect framework. The findings of the study show that, when excluding the effect from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, actual terrorist attacks have no generalizable short-term impact on the popularity of the U.S. president. This indicates that even though the topics of national security, terrorism, and the president’s ability to handle these issues are important in the political debate in the United States, actual terrorism has little or no short-term impact on presidential approval ratings.

Can Anyone Stop the President? Power Asymmetries and Term Limits in Latin America, 1984–2016

AbstractSince the late twentieth century, numerous Latin American nations have launched efforts to relax presidential term limits, often successfully. This article discusses the conditions under which countries succeed in relaxing term limits. Drawing from bargaining models and reviewing 36 cases, it makes three arguments. First, actors' preferences are fairly predictable on the basis of officeholding: presidents are the most prominent actors pushing for expansion of term limits; opposition parties lead the resistance. Second, power asymmetry, measured by presidential approval ratings, is the best predictor of success, better than ideology or share of seats in Congress. Third, the only hope for stopping popular presidents rests with ruling parties and the courts, but only when the latter are sufficiently independent.

The Effects of the State of Union Address of USA Presidents to Their Performance Ratings

In this article, the authors conduct a case study using text mining technique to analyze the patterns of the president's State of the Union Address in USA, and investigate the effects of these speech patterns on their performance rating in the following year. The speeches analyzed include the recent four USA presidents, Bush (1989 – 1992), Clinton (1993 - 2000), G.W. Bush (2001 – 2008), and Obama (2009 – 2011). The patterns found are further integrated and merged with over 4000 surveys on the presidents' performance ratings from 1989 to 2010. Two text mining methodology are applied to study the text patterns. Two predictive modeling techniques are applied to study the effects of these found patterns to their presidential approval ratings. The results indicate that the speech patterns found are highly associated with their approval rates.

Surge and Decline: The Impact of Changes in Voter Turnout on the 2010 Senate Elections

Enthusiasm among Republican voters and a lack thereof among Democrats was cited by many post-election analyses as a contributing factor to the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections. Analysis of the aggregate county level voter turnout and results of the 2010 Senate races provides strong evidence of (1) a sharper decline in turnout from 2008 to 2010 in areas in which Barack Obama did well in 2008 and (2) a significant relationship between turnout changes from 2006–2010 and 2008–2010 and changes in the vote share of Democratic Senate candidates in 2010. In addition, a test of the referendum theory of midterm elections shows that declining presidential approval ratings, but not economic indicators, are predictive of the Democratic vote share in 2010. Despite previous findings that midterm and presidential electorates do not fundamentally differ, this analysis of the 2010 Senate elections provides evidence that differential turnout among core and peripheral voters is an important part of the explanation for the surge that occurs in presidential elections and the subsequent decline in voter participation during midterms.

Is There Anything Wrong with Putin's Electoral Ratings? A Study of 2012 Russian Presidential Elections

Although the Russian Presidential election of 2012 is characterized by blatant fraud, the estimates released by major national polling organizations before and after the election showed close correspondence to official results. This fact implies the presence of a potential source of hidden inflation. Using the data from four national surveys, I am testing three alternative propositions aimed to explain the source of potential inflation in the Russian presidential ratings: the 'weighting,' the non-probability sampling design and, finally, the social desirability bias explanations. My findings suggest that the social desirability bias explanation is the most plausible one. I also perform an external validity check of my findings by using several randomized response techniques with respect to presidential approval ratings 2014.

Two Puzzles in the Presidential Approval Rating of President Roh Moo-hyun

Two Puzzles in the Presidential Approval Rating of President Roh Moo-hyun

The Tone of Spanish‐Language Presidential News Coverage

ObjectivesI explore whether the tendency of English‐language news broadcasts to favor negative coverage of the president contrasts with Spanish‐language news coverage of the president, especially because a Latino news audience should prefer more positive stories of a Democratic president. I also examine whether presidential speeches and the political environment influence the tone of presidential news coverage.MethodsI describe the tone of presidential news coverage and use ordinary least squares regression to explain influences on the tone of Spanish‐ and English‐language presidential news coverage for 85 broadcast days and over 50 stories each in early 2011.ResultsNBC Nightly News is more negative than Noticiero Telemundo is in its coverage of the U.S. president. Although higher presidential approval ratings offer the president more positive news coverage on both networks, Latino support for President Obama does not encourage mostly positive coverage of immigration coverage on Spanish‐language news.ConclusionPresidents can expect less negative coverage on Spanish‐language news, but not necessarily on immigration policy, an issue of central importance to the Latino community.

Terrorist Attacks & Presidential Approval Rating

After the attacks of September 11th the U.S. focused much of its foreign policy efforts on the War on Terror and prevention of another attack on U.S. soil. This paper will look at terrorist attacks dating back to 1970 in order to fully understand the impact of terrorist attacks on U.S. presidential approval ratings and the existence of the ‘rally around the flag’ effect during different administrations. Location, lethality, style, and political affiliation of the president will be variables focused on in a pre and post 9/11 context. This paper will give special consideration to 9/11, excluding the attacks in many cases, in order to view if there is a significant stable impact on approval ratings from terrorist attacks over time.

A President's Energy Policy: An Ethical Duty But a Popularity Disaster

This study finds that the opposite results were found in response to the announcement of a national energy policy. Instead of Presidential approval ratings going up in the subsequent year, they consistently fell during the following year, with one explicable exception. Instead, it was found that gas prices consistently increase after an energy policy is announced, which is probably the true factor explaining the drop in Presidential approval ratings. This is due to the finding that 52% of a president’s approval rating can be attributed to gas prices. Future national energy policies might consider taking actions that would have an immediate effect on dropping gas prices if they would like to have their energy policies seen favorably. Despite this predictive findings for Presidential approval ratings, the development of a National Energy Policy should be considered not only an ethical obligation but a legal one. A national energy policy has become increasingly critical to our national economy and our national security, a constitutional responsibility of the President.

The Mythical Framing Effect: Media Coverage and Public Opinion Regarding the Iraq War

This study focused on the distinction between mythic and non-mythic framing of news stories pertaining to the Iraqi War. A content analysis was performed on 531 news articles appearing in The New York Times and Time Magazine from 2003 to 2007. Gallup polling data was used to construct measures of public opinion regarding the war (War Approval) and the Presidents handling of the war (Presidential Approval). In both news sources, non-mythical news coverage was more predominant than mythical coverage. Most importantly, the amount of mythical news coverage influenced popular opinion. Importantly, however, this mythical framing effect was moderated by media source and the nature of the popular opinion rating. Specifically, mythical news coverage in the New York Times significantly increased Presidential approval ratings. This mythical framing effect failed to emerge, however, when examining the effect of news coverage in Time Magazine and when predicting more general and impersonal ratings of War Approval. Results are discussed in the context of

Personal charisma or the economy?

We test the degree to which presidential approval ratings are related to a series of economic indicators, controlling for the political scenario in Brazil. Results, from 1999M9 until 2010M5, show that unemployment and the minimum wage are the main variables that affect the ratings. There is also evidence that President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva has a higher approval rate than President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, keeping constant a reasonable number of important domestic and foreign indicators. However, when controlled for a time trend, differences in popularity between both presidents vanish as the sample size grows. Our results support the conclusion that the good state of the economy (given no political turmoil) is the main factor that explains and predicts Lula's high popularity. O artigo testa em que medida as taxas de aprovação do presidente do Brasil estão relacionadas com uma série de indicadores econômicos, controlando para o cenário político. Os resultados, de 1999M9 até 2010M5, mostram que o desemprego e o salário mínimo são as principais variv´eis econômicas que afetam a aprovação. Também existe evidência que o Presidente Luis Inácio Lula da Silva tem uma maior taxa de aprovação que o Presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, mantendo constante um número razoável de importantes indicadores domésticos e estrangeiros. No entanto, quando se controla para uma tendência determinista, as diferenças de popularidade entre os dois presidentes desaparecem com o aumento da amostra. Os resultados permitem concluir que o bom estado da economia (supondo a ausência de choques políticos) é um dos principais fatores que explica e prediz a alta popularidade do Presidente Lula.