What Is and What May Never Be: Economic Voting in Developing Democracies

Abstract

Objective. We propose and test a theory that media freedom determines the extent of economic voting in developing democracies. Methods. Building on extant work that suggests economic voting takes place in developing democracies much like it does in established democracies (Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, 2008), we test our theory using a new collection of aggregate data from elections in 22 developing democracies in Africa Results. Media freedom rather than political freedom may be a bigger determinant of economic voting in developing democracies. Moreover, the threshold of political development needed for economic voting is lower than previously suggested by the literature. Conclusion. Economic voting is alive and well in developing democracies-even those with relatively low levels of economic and political development.

What about us? Political competition, economic performance, immigration, and nativist appeals

“…Another vast literature that is relevant to these party competition dynamics is the work on economic voting (Duch and Stevenson 2008; Hibbs 2006; Lewis‐Beck and Stegmaier 2018, 2000; Wimpy and Whitten 2017). In this literature, the focus is on how government parties are or are not punished or rewarded based on the performance of the economy.…”

Do voters in developing and transitional democracies care about income inequality? the role of media freedom

“…Voters' ability to assess the true state of the national economy, and thus, the extent of their economic voting, is indeed commensurate to their access to information (Wimpy & Whitten, 2017). A crucial source for voters to learn about the state of the economy (other than their own personal economic experience; Aidt, 2000) is the media (Ansolahabere et al, 2014;Goidel & Langley, 1995;Sheafer, 2008).…”

“…3 Our sample can be described as countries that are still developing economically as well as democratically, similar to the definition adopted by Wimpy and Whitten (2017). As confirmed by Bochsler and Hänni (2019), Roberts (2008), andBratton et al (2012), these distinct voter and political party characteristics typically make up democracies in Southeast Asia, Latin America, CEE, as well as several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.…”

Performance voting, retrospective voting, and economic voting. Conceptual clarity and empirical testing

“…Hence, economic voting is a specific domain of retrospective voting, which is part of the more general performance voting theory. Within the specific domain of retrospective economic voting, then, as in the domain of prospective economic voting, there are more specific debates, such as its cross-national applicability and the target, breadth, and time horizon of voter evaluations (Achen and Bartels 2016;Healy and Lenz 2014;Paldam 1994, 1997;Stiers, Dassonneville, and Lewis-Beck 2020;Stubager et al 2014;Wimpy and Whitten 2017), although most research focuses on retrospective sociotropic effects (Anderson 2020;Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier 2000;Nadeau, Lewis-Beck, and Bélanger 2013).…”