Systemic polarisation and spatial voting

The controversy between proximity and directional models of issue voting has not been settled. Instead of appointing an ultimate winner, this article explores the conditioning impact of the level of systemic polarisation and provides evidence that proximity is a more relevant determinant of voter behaviour in less polarised systems, whereas there is a centrifugal and directional dynamic in more polarised contexts. By so doing, the article shows how a largely forgotten notion – namely Sartori's idea of the spatial elasticity of the political spectrum – leads to different spatial viewpoints. In distinguishing between party (supply side) and voter (demand side) polarisation, this framework provides a comprehensive picture about the conditions that turn a centripetal electoral dynamic into a purely centrifugal one.     

Asymmetric federalism and economic voting

Although federal arrangements adopt a multiplicity of forms across and within federations, this article suggests that some models of power division are better than others at enhancing clarity of responsibility and electoral accountability. This conclusion is the result of exploring responsibility attribution and economic voting in a state where decentralisation arrangements vary across regions: the Spanish State of Autonomies. Using electoral surveys and aggregated economic data for the 1982–2012 period, the empirical analysis shows that regional economic voting is most pronounced in regions where decentralisation design concentrated authority and resources at one level of government, whereas it is inexistent in regions where devolution followed a more intertwined model of power distribution. The implication of the empirical findings is that the specific design of intergovernmental arrangements is crucial to make electoral accountability work in federations.     

Elite economic forecasts, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voting intentions in great britain

In order to test the notion that the electorate relies, derivatively, on professional economic forecasts, we consider the entire chain between elite economic expectations, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voter preferences. We find that while elite expectations are based on the objective economy, they are politically biased in the neighborhood of elections. Reports of economic news, while based on the objective economy and on elite expectations, have their own political rhythm in the form of election–related cycles. The pattern in news coverage, in turn, is mirrored by election–related cycles in personal and general expectations formed by the mass public. While the relevance of each of the linkages from elite expectations to news coverage to mass expectations is thus confirmed, our findings challenge the view that the link between mass expectations and voting intentions can be attributed mainly to the dissemination of elite forecasts to the general public. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for an understanding of the ability and functioning of mass electorates.     

Elite economic forecasts,economic news,mass economic expectations,and voting intentions in Great Britain

Abstract In order to test the notion that the electorate relies, derivatively, on professional economic forecasts, we consider the entire chain between elite economic expectations, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voter preferences. We find that while elite expectations are based on the objective economy, they are politically biased in the neighborhood of elections. Reports of economic news, while based on the objective economy and on elite expectations, have their own political rhythm in the form of election–related cycles. The pattern in news coverage, in turn, is mirrored by election–related cycles in personal and general expectations formed by the mass public. While the relevance of each of the linkages from elite expectations to news coverage to mass expectations is thus confirmed, our findings challenge the view that the link between mass expectations and voting intentions can be attributed mainly to the dissemination of elite forecasts to the general public. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for an understanding of the ability and functioning of mass electorates.     

Congressional rationality and spatial voting

It is very difficult to demonstrate that representatives employ sophisticated cost-benefit calculations in evaluating constituent benefits when making many legislative decisions. This is because most modern American legislation is ambiguous about which constituencies will receive particularized benefits. This paper examines a series of locational rollcall votes in which the benefits going to constituents were obvious. In such cases representatives balance increases in voter support within their congressional districts and potential increases in their political power within Congress to be gained by vote trading. If constituency benefits are great, representatives overwhelmingly support legislation to provide such benefits. As the benefits decline, vote trading increases.     

Election manifestos and policy-oriented economic voting

Abstract. Many previous analyses of aggregate-level policy-oriented economic voting hypotheses have been based on expert judgements of incumbents' ideology. These judgements first of all concentrate on long term characteristics of ideological stands and, more importantly, do not reflect parties' positions on economic issues per se. Using parties' arguments on economic issues in their election manifestoes, this article develops a left-right ideology dimension that reflects parties' relative positions on economic issues for 163 elections in 16 countries in the post-World War II period. The analysis suggests that over time there are very stable differences in parties' ideological positions on economic issues. Despite increasing clarity of ideological cleavages on economic issues, and persistent evidence of diverging economic policy outcomes in the literature, no distinct reward and punishment by the electorate is observed, associated with the ideological stands of the incumbents. Accordingly, the policy-oriented economic voting hypothesis is rejected and possible reasons for this phenomenon is discussed.     

Reconsidering individual-level heterogeneity in economic voting

This paper proposes a general theory of individual-level heterogeneity in economic voting based on the perspective that the strength of the relationship varies with factors that influence the relevance of the economic evaluation to the vote choice. We posit that the electoral relevance of the economic evaluation increases with the strength of partisanship as well as political sophistication. Given the strong correlation between partisanship and sophistication, this theoretical perspective casts doubt on extant evidence that more sophisticated voters are more likely to hold the incumbent party electorally accountable for macroeconomic performance since this result might be an artifact of failing to control for the economic evaluation being more relevant to the vote choice of stronger partisans. Our statistical investigation of this question finds no significant evidence that sophistication conditions the economic voting relationship once the conditioning effect of partisanship is included in the model. This finding suggests that individual-level heterogeneity in the strength of the economic voting relationship is largely due to stronger partisans voting more consistently with their national economic evaluation than to more sophisticated voters being more policy-oriented by holding the incumbent party more electorally accountable for macroeconomic performance.     

A communotropic theory of economic voting

Within the social sciences, there is a long and storied history of the effect of economic conditions on vote choice. The traditional arguments are that voters have personal (egotropic) and/or other-regarding (sociotropic) preferences and that they reward and punish politicians electorally based on economic conditions at these levels. However, there is a third option. As industries, employment, and economic conditions are not uniformly distributed across the country, preferences may be locally based. This project combines unique survey data with Metropolitan Statistical Area unemployment numbers and finds evidence of distinct preferences at a third “communotropic” level.     

The campaign dynamics of economic voting

This paper considers the relationship between election campaigns and the impact of economic evaluations on vote choice. The motivation is the standard expectation that the campaign generally serves to amplify the significance of economic considerations in the voter's calculus—to focus his/her attention on this “fundamental” element of the electoral decision. Drawing on survey data from ten national elections across four countries (Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) and applying both parametric and semi-parametric statistical techniques, the paper finds no support for this proposition. The paper reflects on the significance of this conclusion for work on political learning during election campaigns, the literature on economic voting, and the study of electoral behaviour more generally.     

Multiparty spatial competition with probabilistic voting

I develop a general model of multiparty competition in which parties model voters' choices by means of probabilistic choice rules. The model is specified in terms of an issue salience coefficient which varies with the importance voters attach to issues, as opposed to unmeasured nonissue motivations. I show that when the policy salience coefficient is sufficiently low, then both vote-maximizing and rank-maximizing parties have a dominant strategy: to adopt the “most popular platform,” which maximizes voter utilities over the entire electorate. This most popular platform therefore represents a convergent equilibrium when all parties are vote- or rank-maximizing. Numerical estimates suggest that this equilibrium result holds for degrees of issue voting which exceed the parameters behavioral researchers have estimated for various historical elections.     

Equilibrium in multicandidate probabilistic spatial voting

This paper presents a multicandidate spatial model of probabilistic voting in which voter utility functions contain a random element specific to each candidate. The model assumes no abstentions, sincere voting, and the maximization of expected vote by each candidate. We derive a sufficient condition for concavity of the candidate expected vote function with which the existence of equilibrium is related to the degree of voter uncertainty. We show that, under concavity, convergent equilibrium exists at a “minimum-sum point” at which total distances from all voter ideal points are minimized. We then discuss the location of convergent equilibrium for various measures of distance. In our examples, computer analysis indicates that non-convergent equilibria are only locally stable and disappear as voter uncertainty increases.     

An economic analysis of voting in Sweden

Using data from the Swedish Election Studies between 1985 and 1994 supplemented with time series on inflation and unemployment, I compare the impact of macro- and microeconomic variables on the individual vote. The principal finding is that macroeconomic variables influence the vote a bit more than microeconomic variables do. In consequence, both self-interest and public interest appear to be important explanations of economic voting in Sweden. Macroeconomic variables have, however, been much more influential in determining election outcomes. Since previous studies of economic voting have used cross-sectional data only, it is also worth noting that panel estimates indicate a much greater impact of macroeconomic variables on the individual vote than cross-sectional estimates do.     

Economic vulnerability and economic voting in 14 OECD countries

The economic voting literature shows that good economic performance bolsters the electoral prospects of incumbents. However, disagreement persists as to whether voters in vulnerable economic conditions are more likely to engage in economic voting. It is argued in this article that a crucial factor in explaining individual‐level variation in economic voting is the degree of exposure to economic risks, because risk exposure affects the saliency of the economy in voting decisions. In particular, the focus is on job insecurity and employability as key determinants of economic voting patterns. The article hypothesises that the extent of economic voting is greater in voters who are more vulnerable to unemployment and less employable in case of job loss. Support for these hypotheses is found in a test with a dataset that combines survey data on incumbent support with occupational unemployment rates and other measures of exposure to economic risks.     

Migrants' remittances and economic voting in the Mexican countryside

This study advances and tests hypotheses about the effects of migrants' remittances on political behavior. Analyzing new survey data from Mexico, I find that despite being very poor, respondents who receive remittances tend to view their income as more stable than neighbors who do not receive this money. As a result, remittance recipients have relatively fewer economic grievances and tend to feel more optimistic about economic matters than neighbors who do not receive remittances. According to the economic voter thesis, citizens who are more satisfied with the economy are also less likely to pressure and oppose politicians, particularly incumbents. Analyses indicate that respondents in this sample who receive remittances are indeed less likely to lobby local officials for economic assistance. They were also less likely to mobilize against and punish the incumbent party in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.     

Policy divergence in multicandidate probabilistic spatial voting

Existing models of multicandidate spatial competition with probabilistic voting typically predict a high degree of policy convergence, yet in actual elections candidates advocate quite divergent sets of policies. What accounts for this disparity between theory and empirical observation? I introduce two variations on the basic probabilistic vote model which may account for candidate policy divergence: 1) a model which incorporates candidate-specific variables, so that candidates may enjoy nonpolicy-related electoral advantages (or disadvantages); 2) a model which allows nonzero correlations between the random terms associated with voters' candidate utilities, thereby capturing situations where voters view two or more candidates as similar on nonpolicy grounds. I report candidate equilibrium analyses for each model, which show far greater policy divergence than exists under the standard probabilistic vote model. I then analyze the strategic logic which underlies these results.

     

Empirical investigation of party preferences and economic voting in Turkey

Abstract.  This article examines the factors that shape party preferences in Turkey by estimating an individual vote intention function that includes both economic and non-economic factors. The economic variables can be used to test the familiar hypotheses of economic voting theory – whether individuals vote retrospectively and/or prospectively, and whether they are sociotropic and/or egotropic. The non-economic factors include sociodemographic characteristics as well as identity and issue variables likely to be good predictors of party choice. The analysis focuses on comparing the characteristics of those who intend to vote for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with those of other parties. According to multinomial logit estimates, young people, especially males, constitute the electoral base for the AKP. Those who have been affected adversely by recent economic developments, as well as those who are against Turkey's accession to the European Union are also more likely to vote for the AKP. The empirical work also provides evidence in support of economic voting hypotheses.     

Collective and individual economic judgments and voting in West Germany, 1961–1984

Abstract: : This article attempts to provide individual-level support to findings of longitudinal macro-level studies of the relation between economic variables and electoral outcomes in the Federal Republic. The theoretical framework is one of incumbency-oriented vs. policy-oriented political responses to collective vs. individual economic judgments (Kiewiet, 1983). The data base consists of 25 surveys from 1961 through 1984. Empirical analysis comprises three steps: First, the relation between economic judgments and partisan sympathies is analyzed, since it appears likely that part of the covariations between voting and such judgments is spurious due to a common dependence upon partisan orientations. Second, the impact of both kinds of economic judgments upon voting over time is investigated with and without controls for partisan affiliation. Finally, the impact over time of macropolitical and macroeconomic variables on individual political response patterns to economic judgments is estimated at the longitudinal macro-level. The analysis demonstrates that collective economic judgments are generally a more potent predictor of electoral choice than individual economic judgments, and that there is clear empirical evidence both for the incumbency-oriented and the policy-oriented hypothesis linking such judgments to the vote.     

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.     

Cross-pressured economic voting in America: The 1984 election

Prior work on U.S. presidential elections has concluded consistently that voter evaluations of national economic conditions have had a greater impact on electoral outcomes than have perceptions of personal economic situations. Utilizing data from the 1984 National Election Study, we find confirmatory evidence for such a pattern. A more disaggreated examination of voters and their economic perceptions for that year, however, reveals some important refinements of earlier findings. Specifically, there is a sizable minority for whom personal economic conditions appear to matter more. Further, the role of noneconomic issue voting in distinguishing economic groups, a topic which has been largely ignored up to this point, is found to be quite pronounced — overriding, in several instances, the influence even of partisan and economic predispositions.