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GUPEA >
Faculty of Social Science / Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten >
Department of Political Science / Statsvetenskapliga institutionen >
Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar >
Economic Voting and Issue Ownership. An Integrative Approach
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20037
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| Title: | Economic Voting and Issue Ownership. An Integrative Approach |
| Authors: | Martinsson, Johan |
| Email: | johan.martinsson@pol.gu.se |
| Issue Date: | 2009-05-08 |
| University: | University of Gothenburg. Faculty of Social Sciences
Göteborgs universitet. Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten |
| Department: | Department of Political Science ; Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Date for public defence: | 2009-05-29 |
| Public defence: | Fredagen den 29 maj, kl 10.15, sal 10, Universitetsbygnaden, Vasaparken, Göteborg. |
| Examinationsnivå: | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Publication type: | Doctoral thesis |
| Series/Report no.: | Gothenburg Studies in Politics
115 |
| Keywords: | economic voting
issue ownership
unemployment
elections
Sweden
voting behavior
saliency
public agenda
government support |
| Abstract: | The aim of this dissertation is to improve our understanding of how economic
changes influence popular support for political parties. Previous studies have
generally found that there is a tendency f... moreor the popular support of incumbent
governments to diminish when the economic development deteriorates. The extent
of the electoral punishment has, however, been found to vary strongly between
different studies. Several institutional and contextual explanations for this
variation have been proposed in earlier studies. The main argument of this dissertation
is that, when we analyse how economic changes impact government
support, we should simultaneously consider changes in economic evaluations
and changes in the public agenda and issue ownership. This is the integrated
model of economic voting and issue ownership.
In an economic crisis with rising unemployment, for example, a government is
likely to be electorally punished for deteriorating economic evaluations. But, if
the incumbent still owns the issue of unemployment, it is also likely to be rewarded
electorally when that issue rises on the agenda as a result of the crisis. In
such a case, the latter effect might counteract, and possibly cancel out, the former.
A set of requisites is specified and examined to test whether the integrated
model is important to our understanding of economic influences on government
support. This study focuses empirically on the case of Sweden, and its special
focus is the issue of unemployment. The main data sources are the Swedish National
Election Studies, the SOM institute at the University of Gothenburg and
the Swedish National Institute for Economic Research.
The results indicate that issue ownership is generally more volatile than previous
studies have usually assumed. However, if issue ownership is fairly strong,
bad performance such as rising unemployment levels does not immediately
threaten the incumbent’s issue ownership. At the individual level, it is also
shown that the effects of economic evaluations and the issue sailence of unemployment
do counteract and reinforce each other in accordance with the pattern
predicted by the integrated model.
For the period of 1988 to 2002, the integrated model seems highly relevant for
understanding how economic changes have influenced government popularity
and election outcomes in Sweden. When the incumbent owns the issue of unemployment,
electoral punishment for a deteriorating economy is substantially mitigated.
For the 2006 election, however, the integrated model does not appear able
to improve our understanding of how the economy influences election outcomes.
This dissertation demonstrates that future studies trying to explain differences in
the extent of economic voting have good reason to take issue ownership into
account. |
| ISBN: | 978-91-89246-41-6 |
| ISSN: | 0346-5942 |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20037 |
| Appears in Collections: | Doctoral Theses from University of Gothenburg / Doktorsavhandlingar från Göteborgs universitet
Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar
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