Mary Stegmaier

The Economic Vote in Transitional Democracies

For the advanced industrial democracies, the link between economics and elections has been much studied. Indeed, this research enterprise has become something of a cottage industry. A current literature review estimates there are upwards of 400 books and articles on the subject (Lewis-Beck & Stegmaier, 2007). Much has been learned from this wealth of investigation. In particular, the classic economic voting hypothesis has been consistently supported. That hypothesis is one of reward or punishment for the ruling party (or party coalition), with the voter responding to economic conditions. Boom encourages government support, economic bust discourages it. This “economic vote”, as it has come to be called, may take different forms. Traditionally, it is retrospective (Key, 1966; Fiorina, 1981). That is, the elector judges past economic performance, and on the basis of that assessment votes for or against the political incumbent. Some scholars, however, have identified a prospective component, where voters act on the economic promises of candidates (Downs, 1957; Clarke & Stewart, 1994). Besides the time horizon, the evaluative object may change. Voters can look at the economic well-being of the nation itself, as well as their own personal circumstances. The former has been labeled sociotropic voting, the latter pocketbook voting (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981; Kiewiet, 1983). These various forms of economic voting occur with regularity in the elections of Western Europe and the United States, although there is some controversy over which of the forms are dominant (Lewis-Beck, 1988). It seems fair to say that, generally, sociotropic concerns outweigh the pocketbook. This is because voters are typically more ready to attribute responsibility to the government for the economic state of the nation than for the state of their personal finances. Thus, a necessary psychological mechanism for economic voting – the voter must blame (or praise)

Getting on the Board: The Presence of Women in Political Science Journal Editorial Positions

Although the overall representation of women in the field of political science has increased gradually over the last several decades, most gains are being achieved at junior levels. When considering the status of women in the profession, it is instructive to incorporate information on the presence of women in editorial positions at top-ranked political science journals. Our 2010 snapshot of women editors in the top 50 journals in the field finds that on average, women are reasonably well represented in editorial positions in proportion to the ranks they hold in the profession overall and at PhD-granting institu- tions; however, substantial variation exists across journals. Our discussion of the role- model effect and the gatekeeping power of editors suggests that greater inclusion of women and others who bring different perspectives to research could result in a more vibrant range of research topics and methodological approaches published in a journal.

Post-socialist democratization: a comparative political economy model of the vote for Hungary and Nicaragua

Abstract For advanced democracies, models of electoral behavior are rather well developed. However, such models may explain only a part of electoral behavior in new democracies. In particular, they seem poorly suited to the emerging, post-socialist democracies, where the vote choice involves fundamental national economic and political variables. While the new democracies of Hungary and Nicaragua are different in certain obvious ways, they share the common experience of profound economic and political system shifts. In this exploratory research, we argue that, in such cases, voters decide largely on the basis of key political and economic system considerations. To support our claim, we formulate a comparative Political Economy model and estimate it by using logistic regression on survey data from the 1990 Nicaraguan election and the 1994 Hungarian election.

Women’s Parliamentary Representation in the Czech Republic Does Preference Voting Matter?

The U-shaped trajectory of women’s parliamentary representation in Central and Eastern Europe over the post-communist era has generated interest among scholars and non-governmental organizations. One particularly interesting case of the recent increase in women’s parliamentary representation can be found in the Czech Republic. After the initial post-communist drop in representation, the proportion of female members of parliament (MPs) hovered around 15 percent for nearly 15 years. However, in the 2010 parliamentary election, something happened. After years of little change, the percentage of women MPs jumped from 15.5 percent to 22 percent. What caused this increase? Here, we conceive the 2010 elections as a “natural experiment” and discuss the primary factors that produced such an increase: the change in preference voting rules, activities of non-governmental organizations, and the political context surrounding the election. To test the effectiveness of these factors, we carry out a multi-method research design based on original data. We find that the reduction in the preference vote share threshold required to move up the ballot benefitted female candidates more than men in the 2010 election.

Relaxing the Constant Economic Vote Restriction Economic evaluations and party support in Germany

The popularity function literature has traditionally focused on incumbent government support, even under coalition governments. Here, we shift the focus from the government to the parties. To what extent are German parties held accountable for economic conditions when they hold the Chancellorship, serve in coalition, or sit in opposition? Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression to relax the Constant Economic Vote Restriction, we simultaneously model separate monthly party support functions for the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), Social Democrats (SPD), Liberals (FDP), and Greens over the post-unification period. After controlling for temporal dynamics and political factors, we find that economic evaluations have the strongest effect on support for the SPD and CDU/CSU when they hold the Chancellorship, and both of these parties are strongly affected when in opposition. The FDP remains insulated from economic perceptions, despite the party’s emphasis on economic policy. Additionally, economic evaluations do not significantly change support for the Greens as an issue party.

Economic Evaluations and Electoral Consequences

Voters evaluate economic conditions and use these assessments to hold the incumbent government accountable at election time. Voters typically assign credit or blame for the economic situation to the government leader, the president or prime minister, and his or her political party. This assignment of responsibility is easy for voters when the locus of responsibility is clear, but it is made more difficult when institutional or government arrangements diffuse power. In general, evidence of economic voting has been found in democracies around the world.

The Effects of Electoral Rules on Parliamentary Behavior A Comparative Analysis of Poland and the Czech Republic

Do different types of preferential-list PR systems create different incentives for how Members of Parliament vote? To examine this, we compare the quasi-list system of Poland, where only preference votes determine which candidates win seats, to the flexible-list system in the Czech Republic, where the 5 percent preference vote threshold required to override the party ranking of candidates gives the party greater power in influencing which candidates become MPs. We analyze roll call votes in the 2007–2011 Sejm and the 2010–2013 Czech Chamber of Deputies and, after controlling for party and MP characteristics, we find that in both countries, MPs with lower preference vote shares are more likely to vote along with their party. But, when we compare the strength of this relationship, we observe substantial differences. The magnitude of this relationship in the Czech Republic is ten times stronger than in Poland, which can be attributed to the more prominent role Czech electoral rules give to the party.