Economic inequality and electoral accountability: inequality and differences in economic voting across Western democracies

Abstract A robust economy is assumed to bolster leaders' standing. This ignores how benefits of growth are distributed. Extending the partisan models of economic voting, we theorize executives are more likely rewarded when gains from growth go to their constituents. Analyses of presidential approval in 18 Latin American countries support our pro-constituency model of accountability. When economic inequality is high, growth concentrates among the rich, and approval of right-of-center presidents is higher. Leftist presidents benefit from growth when gains are more equally distributed. Further analyses show growth and inequality inform perceptions of personal finances differently based on wealth, providing a micro-mechanism behind the aggregate findings. Study results imply that the economy is not purely a valence issue, but also a position issue.

Download Full-text

Economic Voting during the AKP Era in Turkey

The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190064891.013.6 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

S. Erdem Aytaç

Keyword(s):

Voting Behavior ◽

Economic Voting ◽

Economic Conditions ◽

Economic Evaluations ◽

Electoral Accountability ◽

Positive Economic ◽

Subjective Evaluations ◽

State Of The Economy ◽

Nationally Representative ◽

Socio Demographic Factors

Economic voting, that is voters’ rewarding or punishing the incumbent according to the state of the economy, is one of the main approaches to voting behavior. This chapter explores economic voting during the Justice and Development Party (AKP) era in Turkey. Drawing on data from five nationally representative surveys fielded between 2007 and 2019, it finds that voters’ evaluations of the economy are a significant predictor of voting for the AKP. Even after accounting for several socio-demographic factors, ideological self-positioning, and partisanship, individuals with more positive economic evaluations are more likely to vote for the AKP. These findings hint at the presence of electoral accountability through economic voting in the Turkish context. At the same time, however, there is a significant and growing divergence in economic evaluations across partisanship—evaluations of AKP partisans are consistently more positive than those of other voters, and the magnitude of this gap in evaluations has been increasing since 2007. Given this increasing influence of partisanship on perceptions of the economy, voters’ subjective economic evaluations may not correspond to objective economic conditions. As the gap between subjective evaluations and objective conditions widens, we can expect weakened electoral accountability for actual economic outcomes.

Download Full-text

Decentralization and Electoral Accountability

Environment and Planning C Government and Policy ◽

10.1068/c0981 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 318-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Ignacio Lago-Peñas ◽

Santiago Lago-Peñas

Keyword(s):

Survey Data ◽

Economic Voting ◽

Electoral Accountability ◽

Individual Level ◽

Clarity Of Responsibility ◽

Regional Elections

On the basis of aggregated and individual-level survey data of national and regional elections in Spain, this paper analyzes how economic voting is impacted by vertical and horizontal dimensions of clarity of responsibility. Our findings suggest that economic voting is enhanced when mechanisms of accountability are simple.

Download Full-text

Retrospective Economic Voting and the Intertemporal Dynamics of Electoral Accountability in the American States

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.2315131 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

George A. Krause ◽

Benjamin Melusky

Keyword(s):

Economic Voting ◽

Electoral Accountability ◽

American States ◽

Intertemporal Dynamics

Download Full-text

Electoral Accountability and the Variety of Democratic Regimes

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0007123408000045 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 65-90 ◽

Cited By ~ 96

Author(s):

TIMOTHY HELLWIG ◽

DAVID SAMUELS

Keyword(s):

Separation Of Powers ◽

Economic Voting ◽

Regime Type ◽

Relative Impact ◽

Attribution Of Responsibility ◽

Constitutional Design ◽

Electoral Accountability ◽

Democratic Regimes ◽

Democratic Performance ◽

Presidential Systems

Do voters reward or punish incumbents for retrospective performance similarly in different democratic regimes? Despite debates on the merits of different regimes, little research has investigated the implications of constitutional design on voters' ability to hold politicians to account. This article shows that regime type determines the way and extent to which elections enable voters to reward or sanction incumbents. These regime effects are separate from and conceptually prior to factors previously identified in the literature on comparative economic voting. Analysis of elections from seventy-five countries reveals that, all else equal, voters have greater potential to hold incumbents to accounts under the separation of powers than under parliamentarism. Moreover, variables particular to separation of powers systems – the electoral cycle in pure presidential systems and instances of cohabitation in semi-presidential systems – affect the relative impact of the attribution of responsibility. The results contribute to ongoing debates about the relative advantages of different constitutional formats for democratic performance.

Download Full-text

Patterns of Economic Inequality in Western Democracies: Some Facts on Levels and Trends

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096506060124 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 39 (01) ◽

pp. 21-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Andrea Brandolini ◽

Timothy M. Smeeding

Keyword(s):

Economic Inequality ◽

Western Democracies

Download Full-text

Keeping up with the Joneses: Relative economic voting, electoral participation, and reference points

10.32469/10355/69870 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Beomseob Park

Keyword(s):

Voter Turnout ◽

News Media ◽

Important Implication ◽

Economic Voting ◽

Reference Points ◽

Vote Share ◽

Vote Choice ◽

Electoral Participation ◽

Electoral Accountability ◽

Do So

This research explores the role relative economy plays in vote choice and turnout. The decision to vote and for whom to vote are heavily predicated on selecting competent policymakers based on their performance handling the economy. To do so, voters must infer the leader's competence based on observations of the economy. I argue that voters can better extract the 'competence signal' by comparing their own economy with the economies of reference countries that share a great deal of familiarity, similarity and connectivity. A relatively strong economy signals incumbent competence whereas a relatively poor one signals their incompetence, and thus, incumbent vote share and voter turnout should be a function of the relative economy. By selecting appropriate reference points from news media in 22 different languages from 33 democracies, this research demonstrates that incumbents tend to be rewarded with increasing vote shares for out-performing growth and are punished for growth that under-performs relative to reference economies. It also reveals that the relatively poor economy makes voters alienated and indifferent from politics, which eventually leads them to abstain from voting. This research has an important implication for democratic electoral accountability; despite frequent instability between the economy and vote choice, this research reaffirms democratic theorists by showing that elections offer citizens periodic chances to change policymakers.

Download Full-text

The Fight against Want

10.1093/oso/9780198805489.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Anthony F. Heath ◽

Elisabeth Garratt ◽

Ridhi Kashyap ◽

Yaojun Li ◽

Lindsay Richards

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Food Insecurity ◽

Household Income ◽

Economic Inequality ◽

First Century ◽

Fourfold Increase ◽

Modest Increase ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Material Progress ◽

Western Democracies

How successful has Britain been in tackling the giant of Want? Britain experienced greatly increased standards of material prosperity during the second half of the twentieth century, with a fourfold increase in GDP per head, similar to that achieved in other large Western democracies. However, Britain saw an even larger increase in economic inequality than did peer countries such as France and Germany. Increased inequality means that the benefits of rising material prosperity were not shared equally but went disproportionately to the better-off. The modest increase in household income for the poorest families suggests that Want, or poverty, should have declined too. However, poorer households also saw their levels of debt rise sharply after 1999, while the rising use of foodbanks and increasing food insecurity suggests that material progress for the poorest may have stalled in the twenty-first century, or gone into reverse.

Download Full-text

Economic Voting and Economic Inequality: U.S. Presidential Elections 1952–2012

American Politics Research ◽

10.1177/1532673x16685313 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 45 (4) ◽

pp. 589-620 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Suzanna Linn ◽

Jonathan Nagler

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Economic Performance ◽

Presidential Elections ◽

Economic Inequality ◽

Decision Rules ◽

Economic Voting ◽

Individual Income ◽

State Of The Economy ◽

Fixed Reference ◽

Election Results

Most economic models of election outcomes make two assumptions: voters look at the aggregate economy, and they compare the state of the economy with some fixed reference. We argue that the increase in economic inequality and slowing of overall growth suggest these assumptions should no longer hold. We propose a theory that allows voters to take into account the distribution of economic growth, and we reconsider different decision rules voters could use to evaluate the incumbent. Analyzing presidential elections from 1952 through 2012, we show that models using the economic performance of individual income quintiles are indistinguishable in overall fit from models using aggregate income to predict election results, but can produce different predictions given different distributions of growth. And we show that voters do not appear to explicitly compare economic performance of the incumbent with the out-party, suggesting they have reneged on their role as rational gods of vengeance.

Download Full-text