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Punishing local incumbents for the local economy: economic voting in the 2012 Belgian municipal elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2016

Ruth Dassonneville ,
Ellen Claes  and
Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Ruth Dassonneville*
Affiliation:
Centre for Political Research, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Département de science politique, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
Ellen Claes
Affiliation:
Centre for Political Research, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa, Iowa city, USA
*
*E-mail: ruth.dassonneville@umontreal.ca
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Abstract

After decennia of research on economic voting, it is now established that the state of the economy affects voting behaviour. Nevertheless, this conclusion is the result of a focus on predominantly national-level economies and national-level elections. In this paper, we show that at a local level as well, mechanisms of accountability linked to the economy are at work. The local economic context affected voting behaviour in the 2012 Belgian municipal elections, with a stronger increase of unemployment rates in their municipality significantly decreasing the probability that voters choose an incumbent party. Additionally, we observe that voters are not opportunistically voting for incumbents who lower tax rates. Instead, voters seem to be holding local incumbents accountable for local economic conditions. We hence conclude that voters care about economic outcomes, not about what specific policies are implemented to reach these outcomes.

Keywords

economic votinglocal electionsreward and punishmentBelgium
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 3 - 22
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2016 

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