The Economy and the Vote in EP Elections. A Comparative and Dynamic Perspective

Bartkowska, Monika and Tiemann, Guido (2011) The Economy and the Vote in EP Elections. A Comparative and Dynamic Perspective. [Conference Proceedings]

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Abstract

Economic factors are said to be one of the most relevant factors influencing voting behavior. That should be true for the European Parliament (EP) elections for at least two reasons. First, the European Union is seen as focusing mainly on economic issues and second, EP elections are often considered as the second-order elections, i.e. as a referendum on the state of economy in the national states and the corresponding government responsibility. This paper aims at testing to which extent economic voting explains voting behavior in the EP elections over time. As data on the 2004 and 2009 EP elections are used, the paper builds upon data before and at the peak of the world economic crisis and thus provides an ideal setting to probe a bit deeper in the mechanisms of signal extraction. The voting behavior is related to objective and subjective economic variables, as well as economic competence signals, the clarity of responsibility for economic policies and basic institutional features, and modeled in the Bayesian framework. The results reveal the context heterogeneity of economic voting, and indicate its systematic connection to alternative varieties of capitalism, to core political institutions, the clarity of the responsibility in liberal versus corporatist countries.

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