TY - JOUR
T1 - Who benefits from the retrospective vote? Bringing in new parties
AU - Bochsler, Daniel
AU - Hänni, Miriam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/11/28
Y1 - 2023/11/28
N2 - Democracies across the world have experienced the rise of new political parties. The dominant view of the model of (retrospective) economic voting implicitly assumes that the main beneficiary of electoral change is the established opposition. However, the rise of new political parties affects how we think of retrospective (economic) voting. This article presents a more nuanced picture of electoral change and considers when electoral turnover benefits established opposition parties, and when new political parties. The theoretical model introduces different macro-economic and macro-political motives for electoral turnover. Using a novel dataset on electoral change, covering 59 democracies worldwide, it is found that high levels of corruption discredit the entire political establishment, and promote the rise of new parties. The effect of economic hardship is more nuanced. Low economic growth mainly benefits the established opposition because voters look for an established alternative within the political system. Rising unemployment, by contrast, promotes the rise of new parties.
AB - Democracies across the world have experienced the rise of new political parties. The dominant view of the model of (retrospective) economic voting implicitly assumes that the main beneficiary of electoral change is the established opposition. However, the rise of new political parties affects how we think of retrospective (economic) voting. This article presents a more nuanced picture of electoral change and considers when electoral turnover benefits established opposition parties, and when new political parties. The theoretical model introduces different macro-economic and macro-political motives for electoral turnover. Using a novel dataset on electoral change, covering 59 democracies worldwide, it is found that high levels of corruption discredit the entire political establishment, and promote the rise of new parties. The effect of economic hardship is more nuanced. Low economic growth mainly benefits the established opposition because voters look for an established alternative within the political system. Rising unemployment, by contrast, promotes the rise of new parties.
KW - New parties
KW - corruption
KW - economic voting
KW - electoral competition
KW - retrospective voting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142885371&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01402382.2022.2145743
DO - 10.1080/01402382.2022.2145743
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85142885371
SN - 0140-2382
VL - 47
SP - 303
EP - 328
JO - West European Politics
JF - West European Politics
IS - 2
ER -