Economic Voting and Political Sophistication in the United States

Abstract

The authors propose a reexamination of the conditioning effect of political sophistication on economic voting in U.S. presidential elections. Replicating Gomez and Wilson's (2001) analysis with survey data from the past five American presidential elections (1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004), they show that low sophisticates strictly rely on sociotropic economic judgments in their intention to support the incumbent party's candidate. For their part, high sophisticates appear to use both sociotropic and pocketbook evaluations in their voting intention, but only in elections where the sitting incumbent is running for reelection (1992, 1996, and 2004). Most of these findings do not hold, however, once the postelectoral reported vote is used as the dependent variable. Indeed, the authors find that pocketbook evaluations do not have a significant impact on high sophisticates' reported vote choice, and they also find important variance in economic voting effects among low sophisticates. The results indicate that high sophisticates continue to use sociotropic evaluations in their voting decision, but only in incumbent elections. Overall, the analysis raises doubts about some of the previous studies' conclusions and underlines the importance of considering the moderating role of contextual factors such as incumbency and political campaigns in economic voting studies.

The Determinants of Salience of Energy Issues

“…By contrast, pocketbook politics dominate when opinion and behavior is determined by a citizen's own economic circumstances; individual wages or family income variation, for example (Kinder & Kiewiet, ). Some scholars argue that personal experience with adverse economic conditions “lack political cogency for the citizen” (Brody, , p. 108), while others disagree and conclude that pocketbook effects depend upon the type of election and the sophistication of the voter (Godbout & Belanger, ). The latter view is consistent with psychological literature concluding that experiential knowledge can be more influential on behavior than abstract knowledge (Epstein, ).…”

Procedural Fairness, the Economy, and Support for Political Authorities

“…There is disagreement, however, in what direction that takes place. While there are studies pointing to the possibility that the more sophisticated voters are more likely to rely on national economic conditions when evaluating the government (Godbout & Bélanger, ; Krause, ), others point to the exact opposite conclusion (Gomez & Wilson, ). In any case, we need to determine whether the estimated process‐outcome interaction survives when this additional moderation mechanism is taken into account.…”

Voto econômico retrospectivo e sofisticação política na eleição presidencial de 2002

“…Mutz (1993) também verifica que o nível de sofisticação política dos eleitores tenderia a aumentar o efeito da avaliação da situação econômica pessoal sobre suas preferências políticas. Alguns trabalhos importantes entre os estudos comparativos sobre o voto econômico também abordam, sob diferentes ângulos, o efeito da desigualdade de sofisticação política em vários contextos (Duch 2001;Godbout & Bélanger 2007;Gomez & Wilson 2006). Por fim, trabalhos recentes na própria literatura mais especializada da escolha racional também já incorporam a desigualdade de informação a modelos formais que visam a explicar a lógica do voto econômico (Aidt 2000).…”