Temporal variations in economic voting: a comparative cross-national analysis

Research over the past three decades has demonstrated that there is considerable cross-national variation in the relationship between the economy and the democratic political support. In some countries, such as Britain and Denmark, economic voting appears to play a significant role in the calculus of party support (Clarke and Stewart, 1995; Nannestad and Paldam, 1996, 1997). In others, such as Norway and Italy, the effects appear far weaker (Lewis-Beck, 1988; Paldam, 1991). In the early 1990s, Powell and Whitten made an important contribution to our understanding of the sources of this general pattern of cross-national variation (Powell and Whitten, 1993). They argued that the clarity of responsibility tended to be highest in situations where a single party (as opposed to a coalition) was in government, where there were majority as opposed to minority governments, and in systems where the separation of executive and legislative powers was not associated with "divided government". In those contexts, where it was clear that the governing party was responsible for macroeconomic policy and performance, it was to be expected that voters would be more inclined to reward governments for economic success and to punish them for economic failure. By the same token, where the clarity of responsibility was low, voters would be less able and less likely to base their electoral judgments on economic factors because it was less clear which party should be blamed or credited for economic failure or success. Powell and Whitten (1993) found significant empirical support for their propositions. There has subsequently been a continuing debate both about how clarity of responsibility should be measured and about the extent to which it explains cross-national variations in the strength of economic voting (Whitten and Palmer, 1999; Royed et al, 2000).