Journal article
Comparative Economic Voting: Britain, France, Germany, Italy
American journal of political science, Vol.30(2), pp.315-346
05/1986
DOI: 10.2307/2111099
Abstract
By now, a number of aggregate time series studies on economics and elections in Western European countries have appeared. But their results are contradictory. And, virtually no survey research has been done to help resolve these contradictions. Here, we analyze new survey data on economics and the vote, gathered in 1983 Euro-Barometer surveys carried out in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Across these nations, economic voting is clear and consistent. Specifically, retrospective, prospective and affective evaluations of government economic performance exert statistically significant and substantively strong effects on the likelihood of a vote for the incumbent coalition. In contrast, personal economic circumstances, no matter how measured, demonstrate nonexistent to weak effects on vote choice. Overall, economic conditions emerge as a relatively important vote determinant. When a more properly specified, general multi-equation model of the vote is estimated, economics shows itself to be as powerful as traditional factors used to explain the Western European vote. In particular, economic variables exceed the impact of partisan identification in Britain, and roughly equal it in Germany. Moreover, the economic variables exercise more influence than the social cleavages of class and religion everywhere except Italy.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Comparative Economic Voting: Britain, France, Germany, Italy
- Creators
- Michael S Lewis-Beck
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- American journal of political science, Vol.30(2), pp.315-346
- DOI
- 10.2307/2111099
- ISSN
- 0092-5853
- eISSN
- 1540-5907
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/1986
- Academic Unit
- Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9984025664102771
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