How does the economy shape policy preferences?

How do changes in the economy translate into shifts in aggregate preferences for a more or less activist government in the U.S.—a construct referred to as “policy mood”? Existing theories pose alternative explanations based on either a Maslow Hierarchy of Needs model, where citizens prefer an activist federal government to expand the social safety net when the economic future looks bright (Durr, 1993), or a Phillips Curve model (Erikson et al., 2002), in which the objective economic maladies of inflation and unemployment drive policy mood. We show that neither of these explanations withstands empirical scrutiny when analysis is extended beyond the time period of the original authors' work, suggest the existing wisdom tying the economy to policy mood is wrong, and offer some alternative avenues to pursue in search of an answer to the question: What moves policy mood?     

What are the current preoccupations of economic voting research?

The papers in this volume remind us of the enormous amount of research that has been conducted to date on the economic voting thesis. The sheer volume of findings reported in this theme issue alone is impressive and richly diverse. But what are the core preoccupations that presently fuel this line of investigation? The contributors to this volume include several of the major players in the field. This provides a convenient opportunity to take a snapshot of where the current priorities lie. In all, we see at least two main trajectories, both of which appear to be well on their way to delivering a variety of informative insights.     

Are Poor Voters Indifferent to Whether Elected Leaders Are Criminal or Corrupt? A Vignette Experiment in Rural India

Although in theory elections are supposed to prevent criminal or venal candidates from winning or retaining office, in practice voters frequently elect and reelect such candidates. This surprising pattern is sometimes explained by reference to voters’ underlying preferences, which are thought to favor criminal or corrupt candidates because of the patronage they provide. This article tests this hypothesis using 2010 data from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where one in four representatives in the state legislature have a serious criminal record and where political corruption is widespread. Contrary to the voter preference hypothesis, voters presented with vignettes that randomly vary the attributes of competing legislative candidates for local, state, and national office become much less likely to express a preference for candidates who are alleged to be criminal or corrupt. Moreover, voters’ education status, ethnicity, and political knowledge are unrelated to their distaste for criminal and venal candidates. The results imply that the electoral performance of candidates who face serious allegations likely reflects factors other than voters’ preferences for patronage, such as limited information about candidate characteristics or the absence of credible alternative candidates with clean records.     

The decline of citizen participation in electoral politics in post-authoritarian Chile

Turnout among registered voters remains high in post-authoritarian Chile, but valid votes as a percentage of the voting-age population have fallen significantly in the post-authoritarian period and blank/null voting, non-registration, and abstention are on the rise. Why? This article tests three rival explanations: (1) lack of political support; (2) depoliticization; and (3) a generational shift in political culture. These theories are not mutually exclusive, but rather explain distinct contours of this electoral phenomenon. Compared to valid voters, blank/null voters exhibit less support for the political system, are less politicized, and more likely to have reached legal voting age during the democratic transition. Although non-registrants also exhibit less political support and are more depoliticized than valid voters, their behaviour is largely explained by a new political culture that stresses individual as opposed to collective participation. In addition to shedding light on this Chilean puzzle, the findings enhance the debates over electoral participation, mandatory voting, and quality of democracy in Latin America and other nascent democracies.     

Compulsory voting and ethnic diversity increase invalid voting while corruption does not: an analysis of 417 parliamentary elections in 73 countries

Invalid voting, meaning blank and spoiled ballots, is a regular phenomenon in democracies around the world. When its share is larger than the margin of victory or greater than the vote share of some of the large parties in the country, invalid voting becomes a problem for democratic legitimacy. This article investigates its determinants in 417 democratic parliamentary elections in 73 countries on five continents from 1970 to 2011. The analysis shows that enforced compulsory voting and ethnic fragmentation are strong predictors for invalid voting while corruption has less impact. Our findings suggest that the societal structure is crucial in understanding invalid voting as a problem for democratic legitimacy because greater social diversity seems to lead to either a greater rate of mistakes or lesser attachments of social groups to the democratic process. Thus, rising levels of invalid voting are not only concerning in themselves but also for the divisive factors driving them.     

Translating membership into power at the ballot box? Trade union candidates and worker voting patterns in Indonesia's national elections

This article analyses the effectiveness of trade unions' electoral engagement in the union-dense electoral localities of Bekasi and Tangerang in Indonesia's 2009 legislative elections. Our analysis reveals that legacies of authoritarianism, electoral rules, and union fragmentation pushed unions to pursue an ineffective electoral strategy of running union cadres on various party tickets. In Bekasi, local leaders within the Federation of Indonesian Metalworkers Unions (FSPMI) chose not to mobilize resources to support union candidates because the union's national leadership had failed to convince them of the soundness of its strategy. In Tangerang, local leaders embraced the National Workers Union's (SPN) national electoral strategy, but had inadequate membership data to conduct electoral mapping and did not provide candidates with financial and leadership support. Neither union, meanwhile, gave much consideration to the problem of translating membership to votes: survey data reveal that most members could not name union candidates, and many of those who could did not vote for them. The article argues that, despite its flaws, trade unions' strategy of engagement in the electoral arena constitutes an important step forward in the consolidation of Indonesia's democracy.     

Estimating relative prevalence of competing issue voting rules in multiparty elections using finite mixture modeling

How do citizens of democratic polities translate their policy preferences into voting choices? Proximity and directional theories of issue voting offer different answers to this question that have strong implications for parties’ strategies. Controlled scenarios in imaginary two-candidate contests have gained popularity as a method to estimate proportions of proximity and directional voters in the population. However, this method is not always applicable in comparative research where scholars often have to study multiparty elections with observational data. In the present paper, I demonstrate how relative prevalence of different issue voting rules can be estimated using finite mixture modeling. Using both a paradigmatic and a recent case, I demonstrate that the mixture model predicts observed voting choices better than the alternatives. I also show how finite mixture modeling can be used to study individual-level characteristics of proximity and directional voters using education as an example.     

The Europeanization of national elections. The role of country characteristics in shaping EU issue voting

Research has shown that voting in European elections is affected by domestic politics. However, in the last years, and particularly after the European debt crisis, also the EU has gained relevance and salience in national politics. In this paper we address the Europeanization of national elections and assess to what extent the characteristics of countries condition the intensity of EU issue voting. Using data from the European Election Studies and the Comparative Manifestos Project, our results demonstrate the importance of congruence between citizens' and parties’ positions on the EU for the individual vote on the national level and show how this varies across countries. We provide evidence that EU issue voting is more intense in countries with more political influence in the EU as well as in countries that are net contributors to EU funds.     

Economic voting in multi-level contexts: Evidence from Kerala and West Bengal in India

What determines electoral support for national incumbent parties and state-level challengers in sub-national pro-poor contexts? Based on survey data from the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal, collected prior to the 2019 national election, we find that voters were more (less) inclined to vote for the sub-national incumbent relative to the national incumbent if their household economic conditions were perceived to have improved (deteriorated) relative to national economic conditions. Our findings indicate that voters in these settings correctly assume that the sub-national incumbent cannot be held responsible for changes in national economic conditions, but, at the same time, the existence of a strong welfare state at the sub-national level creates expectations that the sub-national government is responsible for personal welfare. Hence, the national election is used to assess the economic performance of both the sub-national and the national incumbent.