Economic Voting in Postcommunist Eastern Europe

Harper, Marcus A. G.

doi:10.1177/0010414000033009004

Cited by 40 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…These scholars argue that economic factors have a significant influence on political preferences, considering that voters hold the government at least partially responsible for the functioning of the country's economy and their own well-being and that economic growth or decline influences the level of support for the established political authorities. An abundant number of studies examine the effect of objective economic conditions or subjective economic assessments on electoral preferences and government approval in different regions of the world (Harper, 2000;Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier, 2007).…”

Section: Economic Perceptions and Extreme Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While many scholars use objective economic indicators to assess whether the bad shape of the economy results in a decline of electoral support for incumbents (e.g. Carlsen, 2000;Clarke et al, 2000;Harper, 2000;Nannestad & Paldam, 2000), others take advantage of opinion surveys, which ask respondents for their own evaluation of the economy and analyze how it relates to government support (Duch & Stevenson, 2008;Feldman, 1984;Fiorina, 1981;Kiewiet & Rivers, 1984;Kinder & Kiewiet, 1979;Lewis-Beck, 1988). Many studies examining economic voting based on election surveys use four different dimensions: personal versus collective (usually labeled "ego-tropic" versus "socio-tropic"); retrospective versus prospective; simple versus mediated and cognitive versus affective (Lewis-Beck, 1986, p. 317).…”

Section: Economic Perceptions and Extreme Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

Krouwel¹,

Kutiyski²,

Prooijen

et al. 2017

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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A large volume of academic research has demonstrated that individuals who profess radical political ideology, both left-and right-wing, tend to share similar underlying psychological patterns. By utilizing data collected through a voting advice application in Sweden, this study aims to assess whether extreme leftists and rightists share similarities in the psychological and political understanding of how society functions. We propose three hypotheses to test this pattern: Extreme left and right individuals are more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than moderates; they are more likely to have negative economic evaluations; and they are less politically and interpersonally trustful. By means of hierarchical regression analyses, we reveal a quadratic relationship between extreme political ideology and conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, we find a similar linkage between ideology and economic evaluations. However, the empirical analyses fail to provide evidence that extreme ideology is related to lower political and interpersonal trust.Keywords: political ideology, economic evaluations, trust, conspiracy belief, extremism Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2017, Vol. 5(2), 435-462, doi:10.5964/jspp.v5i2.745 Received: 2016-12-08. Accepted: 2017-09-10. Published (VoR): 2017-10-28.Handling Editor: Małgorzata Kossowska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland *Corresponding author at: Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 334 2 1012 RW Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: andre.krouwel@vu.nl This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Throughout the 20 th century, radical political ideologies served as the propeller of tragic events that have left a deep mark in human history (Baumeister, 1997;Midlarsky, 2011). Movements of the radical right, such as Fascism and Nazism, were ideologically driven to commit unimaginable crimes against humanity which resulted in the death of millions. On the left, communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as in numerous Asian countries were responsible for comparable atrocities. Even though there are substantial differences between these ideologies, political psychologists have noted that extreme left-and right-wing ideologies may share a similar underlying psychological pattern (Greenberg & Jonas, 2003). In order to assess whether rigid devotion to extreme political ideology on both the left and the right corresponds to a similar psychological under- jspp.psychopen.eu | 2195-3325 standing of the world, it is necessary to compare radical individuals and test if their comprehension of the functioning of society is identical. Journal of Social and Political PsychologyAlthough extremist regimes of the past are in many ways hard to compare to political actors that are considered relatively extreme in the current politi...

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Section: Economic Perceptions and Extreme Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Economic Perceptions and Extreme Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

Krouwel¹,

Kutiyski²,

Prooijen

et al. 2017

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Consequently, if we believe that economic voting existed during the early transformation phase, as claimed by a number of studies (Pacek 1994;Przeworski 1996;Colton 1996;Harper 2000;Fidrmuc 2000a, b;Tucker 2002Tucker , 2006, it is doubtful that post-communist citizens cast referendum votes based on the national economic performance. Instead, it is likely that their voting behavior was motivated by economic expectations or driven by personal experiences, political attitudes and assessments of the transition reforms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In post-communist countries, past studies of economic voting produced somewhat contradictory results with respect to the retrospective-prospective voting hypotheses (Pacek 1994;Przeworski 1996;Colton 1996;Harper 2000;Fidrmuc 2000a, b; see also Stokes 1996). In fact, some new democratic governments in those countries achieved reelection under economic conditions that would be considered fatal for any government in Western democracies.…”

Section: The Formation Of Economic Perceptions: Data and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Formation of Economic Perceptions in Post-Communist Countries of East Central Europe

Tverdova

2011

Polit Behav

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In the early transition phase in post-communist Europe, citizens' perceptions of the national economy appeared more favorable than objective economic indicators would suggest. With triple and quadruple digit annual inflation rates and a severe economic contraction, there was a substantial portion of the population in these countries who still thought that the national economy had been and would be improving. Thus, sociotropic economic perceptions in the wake of the democratic transformation appeared to be disconnected from the real economic situation. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it explores the link between objective economic indicators and public evaluations of the economy. Second, it investigates the microfoundations of economic perceptions. And finally, it tests a well-established proposition that political sophisticates are more accurate in their perceptions than their less informed counterparts. The findings of the study can be generalized to any political and economic system undergoing transition.Keywords Economic perceptions Á Post-communist Á Transition Á Economic voting Á Information shortcuts Á Accountability One of the grounding postulates of democratic theory is the principle of accountability. The theoretical operation of the accountability mechanism is quite simple: elected officials bear responsibility for their performance and receive reward or punishment from their constituency accordingly in the form of re-election or denial of a future political mandate. In reference to economic accountability, the mechanism presumes government responsibility for the state of the national economy, also known as economic voting (Lewis-Beck 1988; Page and Shapiro

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“…Studies conducted in the US and Western European countries reveal that despite the various degrees to which voters hold governments accountable for economic performance, the economic evaluations strongly influence voting decisions (Bellucci 1984, Powell and Whitten 1993, Anderson 2000, Dorussen and Taylor 2002. Despite a lower level of experience in elections, these mechanisms work also in the post-communist countries where previous research (Pacek 1994, Fidrmuc 2000, Harper 2000, Jackson et al 2003, Tucker 2006 identifies economic effects for the vote for particular types of parties (e.g. reformists or successor parties).…”

Section: Government/economic Performancementioning

confidence: 98%

Does government performance matter? Electoral support for incumbents in six post-communist countries

Gherghina

2011

Contemporary Politics

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For two decades, the Central and Eastern European party politics has been characterized by the widespread inability of parties to secure stable political support (reflected in high levels of electoral volatility) to allow their presence in government for consecutive terms. This paper investigates the factors that trigger support for incumbent parties in post-communist countries. In doing so, it examines the effect of individual evaluations at the systemic level (i.e. satisfaction with democracy, government activity), partisan attachment (i.e. preference), and objective indicators of individual economic success (i.e. the level of income) on the vote for incumbents. This cross-national analysis is conducted at the individual-level in six post-communist countries chosen on the basis of the most similar system design. The study uses data from election surveys at two different moments in time (mid-1990s and the first elections of the 2000s) and combines bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses. The results indicate that partisanship and positive evaluations of the government explain most of the vote for incumbents. Apart from these visible patterns, there are some other valuable results in specific countries understandable solely within the larger domestic political context.

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Economic Voting in Postcommunist Eastern Europe

Cited by 40 publications

References 31 publications

Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

The Formation of Economic Perceptions in Post-Communist Countries of East Central Europe

Does government performance matter? Electoral support for incumbents in six post-communist countries

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