From decades of scholarship, we know that the economy matters for government support
and election outcomes. Key generalizations are now possible. As the economy improves …

In considering the outcome of a national election, the usual first question, as far as domestic
politics goes, is" How's the economy doing?" We know the economy plays a major, often …

Retrospective voting is arguably one of the most important mechanisms of representative
democracy, and whether or not the public holds the government accountable for its policy …

Spatial and valence models are the workhorses of research on electoral behaviour. Yet, little
is known about the common factors that influence the strength of both these determinants of …

Retrospective voting is one of the most frequently investigated theories of voting behaviour.
It postulates that voters punish or reward incumbent parties according to their performance …

The Great Recession is a non-trivial test bed for the theory of economic voting, especially if
its predictions are decomposed at the party level, as done in this article by analysing the …

Democratic accountability relies on citizens to anticipate future governing behavior. We
explore the strategic incentives for parties to shape voter expectations by generating vague …

Government cohesiveness is known to moderate retrospective voting. While previous work
on this topic has focused on characteristics of the government, we build on the literature on …

Experimental evidence suggests that decision makers with proposal power are held
responsible for collective decisions. In the case of coalition governments, voter heuristics …

Worldwide political parties devote more than half of their budgets to communication
campaigns. Yet research on political behavior is not unanimous as to the effect of political …