The political conditioning of subjective economic evaluations: the role of party discourse

Pardos-Prado, S. and Sagarzazu, I. (2016) The political conditioning of subjective economic evaluations: the role of party discourse. British Journal of Political Science, 46(4), pp. 799-823. (doi: 10.1017/S0007123414000428)

[img]
Preview
Text
98264.pdf - Accepted Version

418kB

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.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Sagarzazu, Dr Inaki and Pardos-Prado, Professor Sergi
Authors: Pardos-Prado, S., and Sagarzazu, I.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
Journal Name:British Journal of Political Science
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
ISSN:0007-1234
ISSN (Online):1469-2112
Published Online:01 December 2014
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2014 Cambridge University Press
First Published:First published in British Journal of Political Science 46(4):799-823
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record