Michael S Lewis-Beck

Recent literature has suggested that economic voting is a multidimensional concept, where valence is but one aspect of the compleat economic voter, along with economic policy position and patrimony, i.e., ownership of assets. Leveraging data from the 2019 Belgian election survey within a distinctive electoral context, this study makes two significant contributions: Firstly, it demonstrates multidimensional economic voting exists in a complex electoral setting, such as that of Belgium. Secondly, it reveals that regional economic development engenders conditional diverse dimensions of the compleat economic voter. In Flanders, a region that incentivizes liberal market competition, we find the emergence of high-risk patrimonial voters. In contrast, Wallonia, a region with strong industry protectionism, encourages valence and positional economics dimensions. These findings have implications for both the economic voting and the multilevel governance literatures.