Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T11:28:57.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Conditioning of Subjective Economic Evaluations: The Role of Party Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2014

Sergi Pardos-Prado  and
Iñaki Sagarzazu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Classic and revisionist perspectives on economic voting have thoroughly analyzed the role of macroeconomic indicators and individual partisanship as determinants of subjective evaluations of the national economy. Surprisingly, however, top-down analysis of parties’ capacity to cue and persuade voters about national economic conditions is absent in the debate. This study uses a novel dataset containing monthly economic salience in party parliamentary speeches, macroeconomic indicators and individual survey data covering the four last electoral cycles in Spain (1996–2011). The results show that the salience of economic issues in the challenger’s discourse substantially increases negative evaluations of performance when this challenger is the owner of the economic issue. While a challenger’s conditioning of public economic evaluations is independent of the state of the economy (and can affect citizens with different ideological orientations), incumbent parties are more constrained by the true state of the economy in their ability to persuade the electorate on this issue.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 799 - 823
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Merton College, University of Oxford; School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow (emails: [email protected], [email protected]). The order of the authors’ names reflects the principle of rotation. Both authors have contributed equally to all work. The authors would like to thank Guy Whitten, John Ishiyama, Paul Collins, Jae-Jae Spoon, Randy Stevenson, Sarah Birch, Phillip Habel, Raymond Duch, Geoffrey Evans, James Tilley, Ernesto Calvo, Timothy Hellwig, Alessandro Nai, the participants of the Martin Colloquium at the University of North Texas Political Science Department, at the European Union Center Seminar at Texas A&M University, the Comparative and American Politics Seminar at Rice University, and the Political Science Seminar at the University of Houston, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and comments. Online appendices and data replication sets are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1017/S0007123414000428.

References

Anderson, C. 2007. The End of Economic Voting? Contingency Dilemmas and the Limits of Democratic Accountability. Annual Review of Political Science 10:271–296.Google Scholar
Anderson, C.J. 1995. The Dynamics of Public Support for Coalition Governments. Comparative Political Studies 28 (3):350–383.Google Scholar
Anderson, C.J., and Just, A.. 2013. Legitimacy from Above: The Partisan Foundations of Support for the Political System in Democracies. The European Political Science Review 5 (3):335–362.Google Scholar
Bäck, H., and Debus, M.. 2013. Parliamentary Speeches, Intra-Party Diversity and the Role of MPs’ Constituencies. Evidence from the German Bundestag. Paper presented a the 3rd Annual General Conference Of The European Political Science Association. Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Benoit, K., and Laver, M.. 2006. Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Budge, I., and Bara, J.. 2001. Introduction: Content Analysis and Political Texts Introduction: Content Analysis and Political Texts. In Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998, edited by I. Budge, H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara and E. Tanenbaum, 1–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Budge, I., and Farlie, D.J.. 1983. Explaining and Predicting Elections. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Budge, I., Robertson, D., and Hearl, D., eds. 1987. Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Butt, S. 2006. How Voters Evaluate Economic Competence: A Comparison Between Parties in and Out of Power. Political Studies 54:743–766.Google Scholar
Calvo, E., and Sagarzazu, I.. 2011. Legislator Success in Committee Legislator Success in Committee. American Journal of Political Science 55 (1):1–15.Google Scholar
Chong, D., and Druckman, J.. 2007. Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies. American Political Science Review 101 (4):637–655.Google Scholar
Chong, D., and Druckman, J.. 2010. Dynamic Public Opinion: Communication Effects Over Time. American Political Science Review 104 (4):663–680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claggett, W. 1986. A Reexamination of the Asymmetry Hypothesis: Economic Expansions, Contractions, and Congressional Elections. Western Political Quarterly 39 (4):623–633.Google Scholar
De Boef, S., and Kellstedt, P.M.. 2004. The Political (and Economic) Origins of Consumer Confidence. American Journal of Political Science 48:633–649.Google Scholar
Duch, R., and Stevenson, R.T.. 2010. The Global Economy, Competency and the Economic Vote. The Journal of Politics 72 (1):1–19.Google Scholar
Duch, R.M., Palmer, H.D., and Anderson, C.J.. 2000. Heterogeneity in Perceptions of National Economic Conditions. American Journal of Political Science 44:635–649.Google Scholar
Duch, R.M., and Stevenson, R.. 2008. The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, G., and Andersen, R.. 2006. The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions. Journal of Politics 68 (1):194–207.Google Scholar
Evans, G., and Pickup, M.. 2010. Reversing the Causal Arrow: The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions in the 2000–2004 US Presidential Election Cycle. The Journal of Politics 72:1236–1251.Google Scholar
Evans, G., and Tilley, J.. 2011. How Parties Shape Class Politics: Explaining the Decline of the Class Basis of Party Support. British Journal of Political Science 42 (1):137–161.Google Scholar
Everitt, B. 1980. Cluster Analysis. London: Halstad Press.Google Scholar
Falcó-Gimeno, A., and Vallbé, J.J.. 2013. Coalition Agreements and Party Preferences: A Principal Components Analysis Approach. Paper presented at the 3rd Annual General Conference Of The European Political Science Association. Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Fraile, M., and Lewis-Beck, M.S.. 2010. Economic Voting in Spain: A 2000 Panel. Electoral Studies 29:210–220.Google Scholar
Gordon, A.D. 1981. Classification Methods for the Exploratory Analysis of Multivariate Data. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C., and Mortensen, P.. 2010. Who Sets the Agenda and Who Responds to it in the Danish Parliament? European Journal of Political Research 49 (2):257–281.Google Scholar
Grimmer, J. 2010. A Bayesian Hierarchical Topic Model for Political Texts: Measuring Expressed Agendas in Senate Press Releases. Political Analysis 18 (1):1–35.Google Scholar
Hamann, K. 2000. Linking Policies and Economic Voting: Explaining Reelection in the Case of the Spanish Socialist Party. Comparative Political Studies 33 (8):1018–1048.Google Scholar
Hellwig, T.T. 2012. Constructing Accountability: Party Position Taking and Economic Voting Constructing accountability: Party Position Taking and Economic Voting. Comparative Political Studies 45 (1):91–118.Google Scholar
Hellwig, T.T., and Samuels, D.. 2008. Electoral Accountability and the Variety of Democratic RegimesElectoral accountability and the variety of democratic regimes. British Journal of Political Science 38 (1):65–90.Google Scholar
Hibbs, D.A., and Vasilatos, N.. 1982. Economic Outcomes and Political Support for British Governments Among Occupational Classes: A Dynamic Analysis. American Political Science Review 76 (2):259–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, L., Bakker, R., Brigevich, A., de Vries, C., Edwards, E., Marks, G., and Jan Rovny, M.S.. 2010. Reliability and Validity of Measuring Party Positions: The Chapel Hill Expert Surveys of 2002 and 2006. European Journal of Political Research 49 (5):684–703.Google Scholar
Hox, J.J. 2010. Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jain, A.K., Murty, M., and Flynn, P. 1999. Data Clustering: A Review. ACM Computing Surveys 31 (2):264–323.Google Scholar
Kaufman, L., and Rousseeuw, P.J.. 1990. Finding Groups in Data. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Klingemann, H.D., Volkens, A., Bara, J., Budge, I., and McDonald, M.. 2006. Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union and OECD 1990–2003 . Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klüver, H. 2009. Measuring Interest Group Influence Using Quantitative Text Analysis. European Union Politics 10 (4):535–549.Google Scholar
Lau, R. 1985. Two Explanations for Negativity Effects in Political Behavior. American Journal of Political Science 29 (1):119–138.Google Scholar
Laver, M., Benoit, K., and Garry, J.. 2003. Estimating the Policy Positions of Political Actors Using Words as Data. American Political Science Review 97 (2):311–331.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M., Nadeau, R., and Elias, A.. 2008. Economics, Party, and the Vote: Causality Issues and Panel Data. American Journal of Political Science 52:84–95.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M.S., and Paldam, M.. 2000. Economic Voting: An Introduction. Electoral Studies 19 (2–3):113–121.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M.S., and Stegmaier, M.. 2000. Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes. Annual Review of Political Science 3 (1):183–219.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M.S., and Stegmaier, M.. 2007. Economic Models of Voting. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior, edited by R. Dalton and H. Kingeman 518–537. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M.S., and Stegmaier, M.. 2009. American Voter to Economic Voter: Evolution of an Idea. Electoral Studies 28:625–631.Google Scholar
Nadeau, R., Lewis-Beck, M., and Bélanger, E.. 2013. Economics and Elections Revisited. Comparative Political Studies 46 (5):551–573.Google Scholar
Parker-Stephen, E. 2013a. Clarity of Responsability and Economic Evaluations. Electoral Studies 32:503–511.Google Scholar
Parker-Stephen, E. 2013b. Tides of Disagreement: How Reality Facilitates (and Inhibits) Partisan Public Opinion. Journal of Politics 75 (4):1077–1088.Google Scholar
Petrocik, J. 1996. Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study. American Journal of Political Science 40 (3):825–850.Google Scholar
Petrocik, J., Benoit, W.L., and Hansen, G.. 2003. Issue Ownership and Presidential Campaigning, 1952–2000. Political Science Quarterly 118 (4):599–626.Google Scholar
Popkin, S. 1995. Information Shortcuts and the Reasoning Voter. In Information, Participation, and Choice: An Economic Theory of Democracy in Perspective, edited by B. Grofman 17–36. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Powell, G.B., and Whitten, G.. 1993. A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context. American Journal of Political Science 37:391–414.Google Scholar
Proksch, S.O., and Slapin, J.. 2011. Parliamentary Questions and Oversight in the European Union. European Journal of Political Research 50:53–79.Google Scholar
Proksch, S.O., and Slapin, J.B.. 2008. Wordfish: Scaling Software for Estimating Political Positions from Texts. Version 1.3. Available from http://www.wordfish.org, January 2009.Google Scholar
Proksch, S.O., and Slapin, J.B.. 2010. Position Taking in European Parliament Speeches. British Journal of Political Science 40 (3):587–611.Google Scholar
Proksch, S.O., and Slapin, J.B.. 2012. Institutional Foundations of Legislative Speech. American Journal of Political Science 56 (3):520–537.Google Scholar
Quinn, K.M., Monroe, B., Colaresi, M., Crespin, M., and Radev, D.. 2010. How to Analyze Political Attention with Minimal Assuptions and Costs. American Journal of Political Science 54 (1):209–228.Google Scholar
Riker, W.H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. Binghamton: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sagarzazu, I. 2011. Weak Party Institutionalization and the Dynamics of Political Dialogue. Oxford: Nuffield College Working Papers in Politics, 2011–2003, 1–43.Google Scholar
Singh, R., and Teoh, J.B.P.. 2000. Impression Formation from Intellectual and Social Traits: Evidence for Behavioural Adaptation and Cognitive Processing. British Journal of Social Psychology 39 (4):537–554.Google Scholar
Slapin, J., and Proksch, S.O.. 2008. A Scaling Model for Estimating Time Series Policy Positions from Texts. American Journal of Political Science 52 (8):705–722.Google Scholar
Soroka, S. 2006. Good and Bad News: Asymmetric Responses to Economic Information. The Journal of Politics 68 (2):372–385.Google Scholar
Soroka, S., and McAdams, S. In press. News, Politics and Negativity. Political Communication.Google Scholar
Steenbergen, M.R., and Marks, G.. 2007. Evaluating Expert Judgments. European Journal of Political Research 46 (3):347–366.Google Scholar
Tilley, J., Garry, J., and Bold, T.. 2008. Perceptions and Reality: Economic Voting at the 2004 European Parliament Elections. European Journal of Political Research 47 (5):665–686.Google Scholar
Tilley, J., and Hobolt, S.. 2011. Is the Government to Blame? An Experimental Test of How Partisanship Shapes Perceptions of Performance and Responsibility. The Journal of Politics 73 (2):316–330.Google Scholar
Van der Brug, W. 2004. Issue Ownership and Party Choice. Electoral Studies 23:209–233.Google Scholar
van der Brug, W., Eijk, C., and van der Franklin, M.. 2007. The Economy and the Vote – Economic Conditions and Elections in Fifteen Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van der Eijk, C., Franklin, M., Demant, F., and van der Brug, W.. 2007. The Endogenous Economy: ‘Real’ Economic Conditions, Subjective Economic Evaluations and Government Support. Acta Politica 42:1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vavreck, L. 2009. The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, R., and Walgrave, S.. 2011. Content Matters: The Dynamics of Parliamentary Questioning in Belgium and Denmark. Comparative Political Studies 44 (8):1031–1059.Google Scholar
Vonk, R. 1996. Negativity and Potency Effects in Impression Formation. European Journal of Social Psychology 26 (6):851–865.Google Scholar
Wlezien, C., Franklin, M., and Twiggs, D.. 1997. Economic Perceptions and Vote Choice: Disentangling the Endogeneity. Political Behavior 19:7–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, J. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 218.8 KB
Supplementary material: File

Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material(File)
File 5.1 KB

Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material(Audio)
Audio 42 KB
Supplementary material: File

Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material(File)
File 20 MB
Supplementary material: File

Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Pardos-Prado and Sagarzazu Supplementary Material(File)
File 12.7 KB