Clarity of responsibility: How government cohesion conditions performance voting

Abstract

Recent literature has shown that the long established link between economic performance and electoral outcomes is conditioned by a country's institutions and government, what is often termed ‘clarity of responsibility’. In this article two distinct dimensions of the clarity of the political context are identified: institutional and government clarity. The first captures the formal dispersion of government power, both horizontally and vertically. The second captures the cohesion of the incumbent government. Analysing survey data from 27 European countries, it is shown that voters' ability to hold governments to account, for both the economy and management of public services, is primarily influenced by the extent to which there is an identifiable and cohesive incumbent, whereas formal institutional rules have no direct impact on performance voting.

Electoral Accountability in the Midst of Criminal Violence: Evidence from Mexico

“…The political context in which elections take place helps to simplify or complicate voters' reward-punishment calculus (Powell and Whitten 1993;Hobolt et al 2013). When the institutional and governmental structures blur lines of responsibility, it is quite difficult for voters to distinguish which part or level of government is responsible for different policy outcomes, and therefore hard to reward or punish accordingly.…”

It's not only the economy, stupid! Good governance matters in elections

“…Well-performing institutions promote economic development (Rodrik et al, 2004), efficient public spending (Holmberg et al, 2009), political trust Rothstein and Stolle (2008) and individual happiness (Bok, 2010;Helliwell, 2006). In electoral research, scholars demonstrate that evaluations of education or health care standards, or level of crime affect voters' support for the incumbent and/or its popularity (Bartle, 2003;Clarke, 2009;Erikson et al, 2002;Hobolt et al, 2012;Johnston and Pattie, 2001). Other studies show that good governance aspects -ranging from crime rates and school performance league tables to measures of bureaucratic efficiency -matter in local elections (James and John, 2007;Boyne et al, 2009;Oliver and Ha, 2007).…”

Credit or debit? The effect of issue ownership on retrospective economic voting

“…Future research might consider paying particular attention to this conditional impact. 4 Vote intention in national elections is commonly used as the dependent variable in studies of economic voting (e.g., Anderson 2000;Duch and Stevenson 2008;Hobolt et al 2013;Nadeau et al 2002). government, which could increase partisan reasoning (Mondak 1993;Slothuus and de Vreese 2010;Van der Brug 2004). An arguably better indicator is what Stubager and Slothuus (2013) term an 'un-cued question', now more commonly employed in comparative research, asking respondents 'What would you say: Has the economic situation in Austria over the past twelve months got better, stayed the same or got worse?'…”

“…We will thus not treat the government as a unitary actor, but test our hypotheses at the party level, taking into account the performance evaluations of and ownership attribution to the various coalition parties. Evidence from economic voting suggests that voters often identify the largest party (or the prime minister's party) as the leading party within the coalition, and thus most in charge of decision making (Anderson 2000; see also Hobolt et al 2013). Hence, also the credit or blame of issue ownership should be distributed unevenly in a coalition government with the effect of our contending hypotheses being strongest for the leading party within the coalition.…”