Endogenous economic voting: evidence from the 1997 British election

Using panel surveys conducted in Great Britain before and after the 1997 general election, we examine the relationship between voting behavior and post-election economic perceptions. Drawing on psychological theories of attitude formation, we argue that those who voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats perceived the past state of the British economy under the Tory government more negatively than they had prior to casting their ballot in the 1997 election. Similarly, we posit that Labour supporters would view the future state of the national economy under Labour more positively than they had before the election. This indicates that, contrary to many assumptions in the economic voting literature, voting behavior influences evaluations of the economy as voters seek to reduce inconsistencies between their vote choice and evaluations of the economy by bringing their attitudes in line with the vote they cast in the election. It also means that voters’ post-election economic perceptions are, at least in part, influenced by and thus endogenous to their vote choice. This finding has two major implications: first, cross-sectional models of economic voting are likely to overestimate the effect of economic perceptions on the vote. Second, the endogeneity of economic perceptions may compromise the quality of economic voting as a mechanism for democratic accountability.     

Economic dissatisfaction and political alienation in Western Europe

Abstract. Using Euro-Barometers 20 and 21, this research examines the role of economic discontent in promoting disenchantment with democracy in Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy. Both cognitive and affective economic evaluations have a strong effect on one's level of political alienation. Those who believe the government will have a negative effect on the economy in the future and those who are angry over their government's management of the economy are likely to be dissatisfied with the way in which democracy is working in their country. After these economic evaluations the factors most closely related to alienation are support for the parties not in the governing coalition and post-materialist values. Even with these items included, however, economic evaluations continue to dominate the model of political alienation.     

Rehearsing Citizenship: The Governing of Juvenile Delinquency in Colonial Malaya

This article traces the sudden problematisation and governing of juvenile delinquency in British colonial Malaya in the decade preceding independence in 1957 whereby a juvenile court system, a network of institutions for delinquents, and a series of training and disciplinary practices were set up to rehabilitate the delinquent in order to turn him into a responsible citizen. Drawing on the analytics of disciplinary and ethical practices conducted by Michel Foucault, it is argued that the governing of juvenile delinquency in colonial Malaya may be seen as a fundamental element of a wider assemblage of normalising techniques seeking to recast subjectivity from that of immature individuals into active and responsible self-governing ones, and that these techniques were highly dividing in that they produced not only what is taken to be good citizens but also delinquents. It is shown that Malaysian independence, far from leading to a break with these power-laden practices of citizenship, instead leads to their further development, dispersal and institutionalisation.     

Liberal Justifications for Local Government in Britain: The Triumph of Expediency over Ethics

It is shown in this article how theories justifying local government in Britain are largely based on the expedience of providing administrative efficiency or stable democracy for the central state rather than ethical grounds that justify local government as an independent entity in its own right. The article critically reviews the development of theories justifying local government within Britain and argues that it is possible on the basis of Mill's arguments within On Liberty to establish a strong ethical justification for local government. It is shown how Mill did not develop this line of thought but established substantive arguments concerning the value of local government for securing a stable liberal democracy and how successive mainstream theorists have modified but not substantially departed from this approach.     

Macroeconomic performance and government popularity in Britain: the short run dynamics

Abstract. Despite an extensive body of research on popularity function modelling there is little agreement about the magnitude and stability of effects. This is particularly true in the literature relating to Britain. The purpose of this paper is to specify and test a popularity function for Britain using the Box-Jenkins transfer function model building strategy. The model is estimated for the thirty-three year period between 1947 and 1980. This approach provides a particularly stringent test of causal links between the economy and political support. It demonstrates statistically significant links between unemployment, inflation and the devaluation of the currency, and the level of support for the incumbent party over the opposition party in the polls. However the links are not strong enough to provide an efficient forecasting model, and the effects are unstable over time. Generally the economic effects are related to the magnitude of unemployment and inflation.     

Trade union power in Britain: The recent debate

It is frequently claimed in the media that the trade union movement is the dominant political force in Britain. Such conclusions are based upon impressionistic and subjective judgements rather than thorough academic analysis. Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of more serious study of the trade union relationship with, and influence over, government. The aim of this article is to review this literature and it is divided into four major parts: the strategies unions use in influencing government; the growing literature on the economic role of the unions; the effect of unions on government policy making; the power of the trade unions in relation to that of capital.     

The Economic Consequences of a Hung Parliament: Lessons from February 1974

The British general election on 10 May 2010 delivered Britain's first hung Parliament since February 1974, and in the run‐up, the Conservative party made much of the economic difficulties Britain faced in the second half of the 1970s in order to try and convince voters that anything other than a Tory vote would risk exposing the nation to the discipline of financial markets. The question of how well equipped an exceptional kind of British government is to deal with exceptional economic circumstances is therefore of paramount importance. This paper argues that the Conservative party made too much of the impact of the 1974 hung Parliament in precipitating subsequent economic crisis and suggests that as such, there is no reason to assume that the Conservative–Liberal coalition government is ill‐equipped to manage British economic affairs in difficult circumstances.     

Business Associations and the Decentralization of Penury: Functional Groups and Territorial Interests

This article compares the responses of subnational business interest associations (BIAs) in declining industrial regions to the demotion of centrally-administered regional economic policy in favor of regional and local initiatives — a "decentralization of penury"— in Great Britain and West Germany. As an organization that represents chiefly functional membership interests, a BIA is not the most obvious candidate for economic initiatives based on territory. Drawing on a comparison of BIAs in two British administrative regions and two German Länder , I discuss the mix of elements that influence whether business is capable of fighting out politics about territory across territory, either on a local or regional basis. The analytical framework employed is based on Schmitter and Streeck's logics of membership and influence. The findings suggest that business associations formulate and pursue territorial economic interests consistently, yet face powerful constraints generated by their relations with members and by central government policies. Where the spatial economic interests of business are concerned, BIAs in both countries, despite the clear differences in organizational properties and capabilities, are best able to balance the tensions generated by the two logics when government policy encourages a local focus.     

Vanuatu: The evolution of the administrative and political context of decentralization

Local government came late to Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) and even then was more a response to external events than a reflection of community interests. The first local council experiment, from 1957 to 1958, failed because of rivalry between the colonial powers, Britain and France. Subsequently national political developments set up additional obstacles to the successful functioning of local government. Political conflicts at the national level, reflecting the divisions created by the Anglo-French condominium, delayed implementation and undermined the administrative viability and democratic quality of local councils. Popular support for and trust in local government has not developed. A system created in haste and altered to serve the interests of competing national elites has not been able to adapt to the needs of local communities. A viable system of decentralization requires a degree of national consensus to be combined with local involvement in planning and implementation.     

Union participation in economic policy making in France,Italy, Germany and Britain, 1970–1993

This study uses a specially‐developed measure of union participation in economic policy making to classify and compare the historical experiences of France, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany and Britain between 1970 and 1993 in order to present a clearer view of the variability of union participation in economic policy making in these countries over this period than has been available up to now. It is found that union participation was concentrated in certain areas of economic policy, in particular labour market policy, and that even high levels of participation were not necessarily linked to union agreement on wage restraint. Over the period as a whole, participation was highest in Italy and lowest in Britain and France, but varied considerably over time as well as between countries. These variations were clearly linked to whether the Left was included in the government of the day as well as to the nature of the national union movements.     

Democracy,creeping socialism,and ideological socialism in rent-seeking societies

Rent-seeking societies suffer from a serious distortion of incentives. Incentives to engage in distributional struggles, to seek contrived transfers are strong, but incentives to engage in productive work are too weak. Stagnation and some unemployment should be expected. Long lasting democracies within unchanged borders create a permissive environment for rent-seeking. The provision of rents very much depends on government. The stronger the governmental involvement in the economy, the higher social security spending, the more rents the government is likely to generate. Therefore, creeping socialism understood as increased government control of the economy should reinforce the rent-seeking society and the corresponding negative effects on growth and employment. Whether such creeping socialism is backed by ideological socialism or not should make little difference for growth or employment. These ideas have been tested and partially supported by a 19 nation sample of industrial democracies, using data from the sixties and seventies. By and large, the rent-seeking approach is fairly successful in explaining national differences in economic growth rates, but receives ambiguous support or less for unemployment. Olson's (1982, 1983) proposition about the negative impact of long lasting democracy within unchanged borders on economic growth is much better supported than the growth-retarding effects of government revenues or social security spending are.     

Local economic strategies as industrial policy: a critical review of British developments in the 1980s

The proliferation of interventionist local authority strategies for employment and economic development has been widespread in Britain since the early 1980s. But much of the radical promise of these strategies has been slow to materialise, due in part to the abolition of the metropolitan authorities and to the election of a third Thatcher government. Moreover new and traditional forms of policy production have co-existed in an uneasy relationship within local authorities, and this threatens the strategic capacity of intervention. It is argued that the regeneration of strategic perspectives should be a priority for local authorities; at the same time flexible specialisation in manufacturing offers new political and tactical opportunities for strategic intervention in pursuit of both regeneration and accountability in the economic sphere.     

英国公用事业的民营化改革及其经验教训

英国公用事业的民营化改革具有深刻的经济、政治原因,英国采取了多种民营化形式,并取得了一定的成效;英国民营化后建立了由政府管制立法、执法和社会监督组成的管制框架;英国民营化改革的经验教训是多方面的,其中包括:法律制度是公用事业民营化改革的准则,政企分离是公用事业民营化改革的关键,竞争是提高公用事业经济效率的根本途径,有效竞争是制定公用事业管制政策的目标导向,政府应按照经济原理制定公用事业的管制价格。     

Perceptions and reality: Economic voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections

Abstract.  One of the most influential explanations of voting behaviour is based on economic factors: when the economy is doing well, voters reward the incumbent government and when the economy is doing badly, voters punish the incumbent. This reward-punishment model is thought to be particularly appropriate at second order contests such as European Parliament elections. Yet operationalising this economic voting model using citizens' perceptions of economic performance may suffer from endogeneity problems if citizens' perceptions are in fact a function of their party preferences rather than being a cause of their party preferences. Thus, this article models a 'strict' version of economic voting in which they purge citizens' economic perceptions of partisan effects and only use as a predictor of voting that portion of citizens' economic perceptions that is caused by the real world economy. Using data on voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections for 23 European Union electorates, the article finds some, but limited, evidence for economic voting that is dependent on both voter sophistication and clarity of responsibility for the economy within any country. First, only politically sophisticated voters' subjective economic assessments are in fact grounded in economic reality. Second, the portion of subjective economic assessments that is a function of the real world economy is a significant predictor of voting only in single party government contexts where there can be a clear attribution of responsibility. For coalition government contexts, the article finds essentially no impact of the real economy via economic perceptions on vote choice, at least at European Parliament elections.     

Who should be chef? The dynamics of valence evaluations across income groups during economic crises

In this paper, we investigate partisan rationalization in valence politics by trying to better specify the direct and indirect effects of the economy on government support. To do so, we examine how income levels moderate the influence of objective economic conditions on perceptions of which party is the best manager of the economy during a period of economic crisis, 2004–2010, in the United Kingdom. We find that low-income voters are more responsive in their assessments of the incumbent Labour government based on unemployment, as are high-income voters in terms of inflation. In addition, high-income voters tend to behave in a manner consistent with partisan rationalization, while low-income voters do not. These conclusions offer important implications for the effectiveness of electoral control of government policy, as well as the quality of representation.     

ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ENTERPRISE: THE BRITISH DEBATE*

Abstract: This paper examines recent developments in the debate in Britain about the role of public enterprises which are wholly owned by the State, that is, the nationalized industries. The changing political and economic context surrounding public enterprise is briefly outlined and the successive attempts to give operational significance to concepts of accountability and performance are noted. In the light of this review recent developments in the framework of control are discussed. It is argued that the parliamentary system has failed to develop adequate criteria of accountability and performance for the nationalized industries, in part because of inherent difficulties common to systems of representative government, which in Britain have been exacerbated by a declining rate of economic growth and attendant attempts to reduce public expenditure.     

THE PERMANENT HEAD*

The position of Permanent Head of a ministerial department is a central feature of the Westminster system of government as it evolved in Britain during the nineteenth century. It has been adopted and applied in Australia with some variations. It is not surprising, therefore, that when debate takes place about the system of public administration the role and functions of Permanent Heads receive much attention.     

When do Economic Perceptions Matter for Party Approval?

Do economic perceptions influence partisan preferences or vice versa? We argue that the direction of influence between government approval and economic perceptions is conditional on the state of the economy. Under conditions of economic crisis, when economic signals are relatively unambiguous, perceptions of the economy can be expected to exogenously influence government approval but this is not found when the economy is experiencing a more typical pattern of moderate growth and economic signals are more mixed. We test these arguments using British election panel surveys covering electoral cycles of moderate economic growth (1997–2001) and dramatic and negative disruption (2005–2010). We examine the most commonly employed measures of retrospective economic perceptions and estimate a range of models using structural equations modelling. We demonstrate that when the economy is performing extremely badly economic perceptions have an exogenous effect on government approval and provide a means of electoral accountability, but this is not the case in under more normal circumstances.     

Islands of the Mind: New Labour's Defensive Engagement with the European Union

This article reviews the cumulative development of New Labour's attitude and strategy towards the EU since the late 1980s and argues that the first two New Labour governments' approach to the EU represented a distinct retreat from the 'constructive engagement' and social democratic philosophy of Tony Blair's early modernising phase, moving steadily to occupy a much more traditional British position of 'defensive engagement', mixing national preferences with Atlanticism, and resisting further political integration in favour of traditional 'intergovernmentalism'. It is further argued that New Labour's prioritisation and preferencing of a UK institutional and political economy based upon economic liberalisation, the preservation of key aspects of national sovereignty, and maintaining Atlanticism as the bedrock of Europe's external foreign and defence policies have left Britain almost as far from the true 'heart of Europe' as when Blair inherited office from John Major in 1997.     

Austerity's Wasted Years

Austerity has become the norm of economic management in the EU, Britain and the USA. In each it is offered as the answer to different problems but everywhere the result is cuts in public spending, higher unemployment and low growth, none of which helps recovery from recession. Labour's response should not be to endorse or continue austerity but to initiate a Keynesian expansionary stimulus based on borrowing and spending on a huge programme of building public housing for rent. This should be accompanied by a competitive exchange rate, an industrial policy to boost the manufacturing sector and a National Investment Bank, the aim being to expand the production base so that it can pay the nation's way in the World and support the structure and the improvements Labour needs. This makes the choice at the next election the issue of what kind of Britain the electorate wants to see: a low wage, mean economy or a determined attempt to rebuild a stronger nation with a more powerful economy.