The Political and Electoral Consequences of Economic Shocks

The Political and Electoral Consequences of Economic Shocks PDF Author: Costin Marius Viorel Ciobanu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"This dissertation analyzes the political and electoral consequences of economic shocks. The key premise of my work is that the economy is susceptible to shocks that have distributional consequences, generating winners and losers and thus political effects. Economic shocks have been found to impact incumbent support, support for populist parties, and electoral participation. They have also been associated with increased political polarization, the transformation of political and party systems, and a backlash against globalization. Despite these findings, the overall conclusion of the literature is that the effect of economic shocks on voting behavior is unclear, and its manifestations are not well understood. My three-paper dissertation investigates the electoral effects of what I term sociotropic economic shocks. I conceive of these shocks (e.g., plant closures or business expansions) as geographically concentrated restructuring events covered by the media and involving a significant number of jobs. I argue that the study of sociotropic economic shocks offers more analytic leverage than an exclusive focus on personal economic shocks, such as job loss or loss of income. My doctoral research highlights three key findings. First, using data on localized shocks and subnational election results for 27 EU countries for the past 20 years, I find that neither negative nor positive shocks impact incumbent support in legislative and European elections. Survey experiments conducted in Romania reveal why this is the case: voters attribute responsibility for these events to a non-political actor (the firm behind the restructuring) rather than to the national government or the European Union. Second, in a paper co-authored with my colleague Aengus Bridgman, we discover that the electoral efficacy of financially compensating those impacted by negative shocks through the EU's European Globalization Adjustment Fund is context dependent: for 20 EU countries, the intervention helps the incumbents, boosts turnout, and decreases populist support only in European elections and when it takes place in the pre-election year. Third, based on a natural experiment, I find that austerity decreases incumbent support, but the effect is gradual rather than immediate, and is associated with increasing media coverage of the austerity measures. Together, these three studies help bring more clarity to the effect of economic shocks on voting behavior. They make a number of significant theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to the field, including: 1) theorizing sociotropic economic shocks and highlighting the role of attributions of responsibility in limiting their effect on support for the incumbent; 2) testing whether compensating the losers of economic transformations pays off electorally; and 3) showing that while austerity measures negatively impact incumbent support, the erosion is gradual, driven by media coverage of the measures and the defection and demobilization of past incumbent supporters"--

The Political and Electoral Consequences of Economic Shocks

The Political and Electoral Consequences of Economic Shocks PDF Author: Costin Marius Viorel Ciobanu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This dissertation analyzes the political and electoral consequences of economic shocks. The key premise of my work is that the economy is susceptible to shocks that have distributional consequences, generating winners and losers and thus political effects. Economic shocks have been found to impact incumbent support, support for populist parties, and electoral participation. They have also been associated with increased political polarization, the transformation of political and party systems, and a backlash against globalization. Despite these findings, the overall conclusion of the literature is that the effect of economic shocks on voting behavior is unclear, and its manifestations are not well understood. My three-paper dissertation investigates the electoral effects of what I term sociotropic economic shocks. I conceive of these shocks (e.g., plant closures or business expansions) as geographically concentrated restructuring events covered by the media and involving a significant number of jobs. I argue that the study of sociotropic economic shocks offers more analytic leverage than an exclusive focus on personal economic shocks, such as job loss or loss of income. My doctoral research highlights three key findings. First, using data on localized shocks and subnational election results for 27 EU countries for the past 20 years, I find that neither negative nor positive shocks impact incumbent support in legislative and European elections. Survey experiments conducted in Romania reveal why this is the case: voters attribute responsibility for these events to a non-political actor (the firm behind the restructuring) rather than to the national government or the European Union. Second, in a paper co-authored with my colleague Aengus Bridgman, we discover that the electoral efficacy of financially compensating those impacted by negative shocks through the EU's European Globalization Adjustment Fund is context dependent: for 20 EU countries, the intervention helps the incumbents, boosts turnout, and decreases populist support only in European elections and when it takes place in the pre-election year. Third, based on a natural experiment, I find that austerity decreases incumbent support, but the effect is gradual rather than immediate, and is associated with increasing media coverage of the austerity measures. Together, these three studies help bring more clarity to the effect of economic shocks on voting behavior. They make a number of significant theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to the field, including: 1) theorizing sociotropic economic shocks and highlighting the role of attributions of responsibility in limiting their effect on support for the incumbent; 2) testing whether compensating the losers of economic transformations pays off electorally; and 3) showing that while austerity measures negatively impact incumbent support, the erosion is gradual, driven by media coverage of the measures and the defection and demobilization of past incumbent supporters"--

Mass Politics in Tough Times

Mass Politics in Tough Times PDF Author: Nancy Bermeo
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019935751X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
In Mass Politics in Tough Times, the eminent political scientists Larry Bartels and Nancy Bermeo have gathered a group of leading scholars to analyze the political responses to the Great Recession in the US, Western Europe, and East-Central Europe.

The Political Consequences of Economic Shocks. Evidence from Poland

The Political Consequences of Economic Shocks. Evidence from Poland PDF Author: John Ahlquist
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
How do economic shocks influence domestic politics? We take advantage of a surprise revaluation of the Swiss franc in early 2015 to identify the Polish citizens with clear and direct economic exposure: those repaying mortgages denominated in Swiss francs. Using original survey data collected just prior to the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections and comparing current with past foreign exchange borrowers, we show that individuals directly exposed to the shock were much more likely to demand government support. Those with no exposure to the shock were less likely to express an opinion on the matter. Current borrowers' preferences for a generous resolution scheme translated into distinct voting behavior. Among former government voters, Swiss franc borrowers were more likely to desert the government and vote for the largest opposition party, the PiS, which had promised the most generous bailout plan. The evidence suggests that the PiS was able to use the franc shock to expand its electoral coalition beyond its core voters to include those directly affected by the franc shock, a subgroup otherwise unlikely to support the PiS. Simulation results indicate that, absent the franc shock, the PiS is unlikely to have won a parliamentary majority.

Political business cycles in a democracy

Political business cycles in a democracy PDF Author: Andrei Horlau
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656404135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 2,7, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel (Institut für Sozialwissenschaften), course: Governing the crisis: how democracies deal with adverse economic conditions, language: English, abstract: Various economic difficulties and economic crises can be challenges for democratic political systems. In some cases it can lead to social cataclysms and even destruction of political systems. In this connection, different political actors offer different programs in order to solve current socio-economic problems. However, according to the modern economic theory the free market economy develops cyclical, and the period of recession always comes after the recovery. There is the conception of political business cycles, which confirm it. Nevertheless political parties often have to carry out the policies and even take part in elections in conditions of economic crises. In some cases they even have to change their programs or significantly correct them in order to keep their voters. In this way, the problem of this term paper is the following one: what are the implications for political parties if they stand for elections in times of crises and their behavior towards voters is either opportunistic or ideological? In order to give the answer for this question which is actual for the current European sovereign debt crisis it is first of all necessary to define political business cycle and to describe their models, which also include the concepts of the parties’ behavior as well as their interaction with voters and issues. Then the role of political business cycles in the economic crises will be explained. The understanding of the nature of political business cycles and the activities of political parties in them reveal the implications which the parties face by elections in times of crises. It can be also helpful for overcoming the consequences of the crisis with simultaneously saving of political stability.

Democracy Under Siege?

Democracy Under Siege? PDF Author: Timothy Hellwig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192585134
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 was catalyst for the most precipitous economic downturn in eight decades. This book examines how the GFC and ensuing Great Recession affected electoral politics in the world's developed democracies. The initial wave of research on the crisis concluded it did little to change the established relationships between voters, parties, and elections. Yet nearly a decade since the initial shock, the political landscape has changed in many ways, the extent to which has not been fully explained by existing studies. Democracy Under Siege? pushes against the received wisdom by advancing a framework for understanding citizen attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. It makes two central claims. First, while previous studies of the GFC tend to focus on an immediate impact of the crisis, Hellwig, Kweon, and Vowles argue that economic malaise has a long lasting impact. In addition to economic shock, the economic recovery has a significant impact on citizens' assessment of political elites. Second, the authors argue that unanticipated exogenous shocks like the GFC grants party elites an opening for political manoeuvre through public policy and rhetoric. As a result, political elites have a high degree of agency to shape public perceptions and behaviour. Political parties can strategically moderate citizens' economic uncertainty, mobilise/demobilise voters, and alter individuals' political preferences. By leveraging data from over 150,000 individuals across over 100 nationally-representative post-election surveys from the 1990s to 2017, this book shows how economic change during a tumultuous era affected economic perceptions, policy demands, political participation, and the vote. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies. The resulting data are deposited along with voting, demographic, district, and macro variables. The studies are then merged into a single, free, public dataset for use in comparative study and cross-level analysis. The set of volumes in this series is based on these CSES modules, and the volumes address the key theoretical issues and empirical debates in the study of elections and representative democracy. Some of the volumes will be organized around the theoretical issues raised by a particular module, while others will be thematic in their focus. Taken together, these volumes will provide a rigorous and ongoing contribution to understanding the expansion and consolidation of democracy in the twenty-first century. Series editors: Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Ian McAllister.

The Economic Vote

The Economic Vote PDF Author: Raymond M. Duch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139470620
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
This book proposes a selection model for explaining cross-national variation in economic voting: Rational voters condition the economic vote on whether incumbents are responsible for economic outcomes, because this is the optimal way to identify and elect competent economic managers under conditions of uncertainty. This model explores how political and economic institutions alter the quality of the signal that the previous economy provides about the competence of candidates. The rational economic voter is also attentive to strategic cues regarding the responsibility of parties for economic outcomes and their electoral competitiveness. Theoretical propositions are derived, linking variation in economic and political institutions to variability in economic voting. The authors demonstrate that there is economic voting, and that it varies significantly across political contexts. The data consist of 165 election studies conducted in 19 different countries over a 20-year time period.

Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Electoral Politics

Financial Crisis, Austerity, and Electoral Politics PDF Author: Pedro Magalhães
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317514998
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
This book examines the domestic electoral consequences of the economic and financial crisis in Europe, particularly in those countries where the crisis manifested itself more devastatingly: the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, as well as Iceland and Ireland. On the surface, the electoral consequences of the crisis seem largely similar, having resulted, in these countries, in large electoral losses for incumbents, as the most elementary versions of "economic voting" theory would have us expect. However, behind this fundamental similarity, important differences emerge. Whilst in some cases, on the basis of post-election surveys, it is possible to see that the "crisis elections" followed a previous pattern of performance-oriented voters, with no major changes either in known predictors of electoral choices or in basic party system properties, other elections brought the emergence of new parties, new issues and cleavages, altering patterns of political competition. By examining these different outcomes by comparing the "crisis elections" with previous ones, this book takes into account their timing relative to different stages of crisis. It also scrutinises party strategies and campaign dynamics, particularly as governments attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in framing events and proposals so as to apportion responsibility for economic outcomes. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

Mass Politics in Tough Times

Mass Politics in Tough Times PDF Author: Nancy Bermeo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199357501
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
In Mass Politics in Tough Times, the eminent political scientists Larry Bartels and Nancy Bermeo have gathered a group of leading scholars to analyze the political responses to the Great Recession in the US, Western Europe, and East-Central Europe.

Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability

Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability PDF Author: Victor C. Shih
Publisher:
ISBN: 0472037676
Category : Authoritarianism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
"Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability hones in on the economic challenges facing authoritarian regimes through a set of comparative case studies, which include Iran, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, the Eastern bloc countries, China, and Taiwan, authored by the top experts in these countries. Through these comparative case studies, this volume provides readers with the analytical tools for assessing whether the current round of economic shocks will lead to political instability or even regime change among the world's autocracies. This volume identifies the duration of economic shocks, the regime's control over the financial system, and the strength of the ruling party as key variables to explain whether authoritarian regimes would maintain the status quo, adjust their support coalitions, or fall from power after economic shocks"--

The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections

The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections PDF Author: Juan Herreño
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description