International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?

Prominent studies of electoral accountability and economic voting suggest that government constraints and international financial structures decrease the economic vote. The proposed mechanism is often labeled as the “room to maneuver,” and it posits that because elected officials have limited space...

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Main Author: Kosmidis, S
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2018
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author Kosmidis, S
author_facet Kosmidis, S
author_sort Kosmidis, S
collection OXFORD
description Prominent studies of electoral accountability and economic voting suggest that government constraints and international financial structures decrease the economic vote. The proposed mechanism is often labeled as the “room to maneuver,” and it posits that because elected officials have limited space to propose and implement economic policy, politicians can shirk responsibility, and thus voters are less likely to place voting weights on the economy. However, results from elections that took place in Europe during the Great Recession and scholarly research on economic voting in these elections cast serious doubts on the causal mechanism. This article directly tests this mechanism with a survey experiment using data from Greece (the country most affected by the debt crisis). The results suggest that although the economic vote is strong and substantive, its size does not vary across the room to maneuver treatments. This finding informs the literature on economic voting and carries out important implications for party strategies with respect to exogenous policy impositions and their electoral effects.
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spelling oxford-uuid:06a03d33-a53a-4872-9688-52e66b8448722022-03-26T09:03:27ZInternational constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:06a03d33-a53a-4872-9688-52e66b844872EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2018Kosmidis, SProminent studies of electoral accountability and economic voting suggest that government constraints and international financial structures decrease the economic vote. The proposed mechanism is often labeled as the “room to maneuver,” and it posits that because elected officials have limited space to propose and implement economic policy, politicians can shirk responsibility, and thus voters are less likely to place voting weights on the economy. However, results from elections that took place in Europe during the Great Recession and scholarly research on economic voting in these elections cast serious doubts on the causal mechanism. This article directly tests this mechanism with a survey experiment using data from Greece (the country most affected by the debt crisis). The results suggest that although the economic vote is strong and substantive, its size does not vary across the room to maneuver treatments. This finding informs the literature on economic voting and carries out important implications for party strategies with respect to exogenous policy impositions and their electoral effects.
spellingShingle Kosmidis, S
International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title_full International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title_fullStr International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title_full_unstemmed International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title_short International constraints and electoral decisions: does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting?
title_sort international constraints and electoral decisions does the room to maneuver attenuate economic voting
work_keys_str_mv AT kosmidiss internationalconstraintsandelectoraldecisionsdoestheroomtomaneuverattenuateeconomicvoting