Date: 2018
Type: Article
The electoral advantage of the left in times of fiscal adjustment
European political science review, 2018, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 291-322
BOJAR, Abel, The electoral advantage of the left in times of fiscal adjustment, European political science review, 2018, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 291-322
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59938
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Despite widely held views on fiscal adjustment as a political minefield for government parties, the empirical literature on the issue has been surprisingly inconclusive. A crucial variable that has been often overlooked in the debate is partisan politics. Building on the micro-logic of Albert Hirschman's exit, voice, and loyalty' framework, this article offers a novel theoretical perspective on the conditioning impact of partisan government in the electoral arena. Due to their more limited exit options at their disposal, left-wing voters are less likely to inflict electoral punishment on their parties, offering the latter an electoral advantage over their right-wing rivals. Relying on the largest cross-national data set to date on the evolution of close to 100 parties' popularity ratings in 21 democracies, time-series-cross-section results confirm this electoral advantage. Somewhat paradoxically, while center-right government parties systematically lose popularity in years of fiscal adjustment, no such regularity is found for left-leaning incumbents.
Additional information:
First published: May 2018
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59938
Full-text via DOI: 10.1017/S1755773917000169
ISSN: 1755-7739; 1755-7747
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
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