Sweeping it under the rug

How government parties deal with deteriorating economic conditions

Bibliographic Data

ID6316263
AuthorsCatherine E De Vries (0000-0002-3824-4284), Hector Solaz (0000-0003-4479-2137, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Year2019
Volume25
Issue1
Pages63-75
Publication date2019-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueParty Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1354-0688 • E-ISSN: 1460-3683
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1354068818816967
PMID30886532
OpenAlexW2910023519
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited49

Party competition in advanced industrial democracies is generally characterized as a two-dimensional space consisting of an economic and non-economic dimension. This study examines (a) the extent to which parties strategically place more emphasis on one of these dimensions vis-à-vis the other, something we coin relative emphasis, and (b) the extent to which voters perceive such shifts in relative emphasis. Our specific focus here is on government parties. We expect government parties to shift emphasis away from the economic to the non-economic dimension when economic conditions deteriorate. In doing so, they aim to reduce the importance voters attach to the economy and the degree to which voters attribute responsibility for the economy to the government. By combining expert data for 232 parties with survey data for roughly 30,000 individuals in 28 European countries in 2014, our analysis shows that while government parties generally pay more attention to the economic dimension, they shift attention to the non-economic dimension when economic conditions deteriorate. In contexts where government parties have shifted attention away from the economic to the non-economic dimension, voters overall attach less importance to the economy and attribute less responsibility to the government for the state of the economy

Business · Competition (biology · Dimension (graph theory · Economic statistics · Economic system · Economics · Government (linguistics · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Public economics · State (computer science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Populism, Right-Wing Movements

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