Party systems and the dynamics of government support: Britain and Germany, 1960–1990

Abstract. This paper examines the impact that one feature of a country's institutional context -the party system - has on public support for governing parties in two West European democracies, Germany and Great Britain. Specifically, it argues that models of government popularity need to take politics and institutions into account, and need to do so in a systematic fashion. Using measures of party system fractionalization and public opinion data spanning the period from 1960 to 1990, the paper demonstrates that the effects of economic conditions on government support are mediated by the choices available to citizens to express discontent with the ruling party. The greater the effective number of parties in a system, the stronger the effects of macro-economic performance on support for the government.