Economic Voting, Multilevel Governance and Information in Canada

Anderson, Cameron D.

doi:10.1017/s0008423908080414

Cited by 30 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Those represent the 43.26% of the MIPs mentioned by respondents for the whole period in our sample. If we include distributional economic problems (wages and taxes) within the category, this percentage goes up to 59.86 (Marsh and Tilley 2010;Wlezien 2005,). shows that more knowledgeable voters discern better the existing constitutional distribution of powers between levels of government (Anderson 2008;Le-n 2012;Tilley and Hobolt 2011). This variable is operationalized taking into account how closely the respondent followed the elections by combining the answers on how often he/she followed the elections through the television, newspapers, internet, attended public meetings, and discussed the election with family and friends.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passing the buck? Responsibility attribution and cognitive bias in multilevel democracies

León

Jurado

Madariaga

2018

West European Politics

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This paper explores the effect of national partisanship and Euroscepticism on individualsÕ causal responsibility attribution in European multilevel democracies. It is particularly focused on the average differences in responsibility attribution in federal and non-federal states, as well as in countries belonging to different European Union enlargement waves. Using a pooled dataset of the 2004, 2009, and 2014 show that when poor economic outcomes are at stake, partisans of the national incumbent in federal states are more likely to assign responsibility to regional governments following a blame-attribution logic, while this logic is absent in non-federal states. Likewise, Eurosceptic individuals are more likely to assign responsibility to European authorities when they hold negative views of the economy and they belong to countries that have been European Union members for a longer period. 3 One of the most celebrated virtues of multilevel systems is better democratic governance. Indeed, classical normative theories state that multilevel governance helps to allocate power more efficiently to the most relevant level and enhance the control of governments by bringing them closer to citizens and overcoming informational asymmetries between representatives and represented. However, a more critical view stresses that vertical fragmentation of power makes the latter unable to establish a causal link between incumbentsÕ performance and outcomes, hampering their capacity to assign responsibilities. From this perspective, the peril of multilevel governance lies in that it makes voters less capable of attributing responsibility, weakening the rewardpunishment model and, in turn, electoral accountability.Certainly, individualsÕ capacity to assign responsibility between levels of government lies at the heart of the accountability mechanism of the reward-punishment model (Cutler 2004(Cutler , 2008 DŠubler et al. 2017). In this paper, the goal is to advance research on responsibility attribution by exploring responsibility judgements in multilevel systems. Building upon the political science literature on retrospective accountability and the social psychology literature on cognitive bias, the paper explores the role of party identification and attitudes towards the European Union in individualsÕ responsibility assignments, and tests for variation in this effect between different institutional contexts. In essence, the specific research questions are namely two: do group-serving biases in responsibility operate more intensely in multilevel systems than in countries with a unitary form of government? Do they operate more prominently in contexts where levels of governments are more consolidated?This paper provides new theoretical and empirical insights into the role of cognitive biases in responsibility attribution, with a particular focus in the variation between different institutional contexts. The first hypothesis assumes that multilevel 4 governance activates the use of cognitive bias in responsibility attribution, and th...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passing the buck? Responsibility attribution and cognitive bias in multilevel democracies

León

Jurado

Madariaga

2018

West European Politics

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“…In a study by Gélineau and Bélanger (2005), only co-partisans of the national government feel the effects of national economic trends. Unlike the German case, there is some evidence that voters also hold provincial governments responsible for provincial conditions (Anderson, 2008). Despite distinct party and electoral systems, such findings echo those for United States politics and provide mixed evidence regarding the dual accountability model.…”

Section: Decentralization Nationalization and Sub-national Electionsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Partisan links with the national chief executive are thought to shape a nexus between national economic performance and the success of sub-national incumbents. At the same time, proponents of the dual accountability model can point to some evidence that sub-national conditions also matter for decentralized party competition in Canada (Anderson, 2008) and the United States (Atkeson and Partin, 1995;Carsey and Wright, 1998). Despite a move to diversify beyond the United States case, the country-specific approach limits our capacity to compare the strength of the impact of national and sub-national forces on electoral outcomes across countries.…”

Section: Decentralization Nationalization and Sub-national Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual accountability and the nationalization of party competition: Evidence from four federations

Rodden

Wibbels

2010

Party Politics

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This paper assesses the extent to which party systems are nationalized in four federations. In doing so, the research addresses two questions. First, is dual accountability operational across decentralized countries, or do sub-national voters turn to national cues as a means to economize in a complex information environment? By bringing a cross-national dataset to bear on this question, we are able to provide insight into where and why dual accountability might operate. Second, what explains variation in the extent to which party systems are nationalized across countries and time? We build on previous literature to suggest a number of factors likely to impact the extent of nationalization. We examine those factors in the context of provincial-level elections in Argentina, Canada, Germany and the United States. Using national and sub-national economic data, we find little evidence of dual accountability in any of our countries. We find that economic performance matters little for regional electoral outcomes, and where it does, sub-national outcomes reflect national rather than sub-national conditions. More important are the roles of partisan relations across levels of government and election timing. Sub-national co-partisans of the nationally governing party lose votes, particularly as the time from the most recent national election grows. The strength of these effects varies across our cases in predictable ways.

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“…Where there are multiple levels of government, often with different parties (or combinations of parties) in office, each developing its own record, the simple reward-punish model becomes much more complex. Ideally, of course, voters will hold each level of government responsible for what it does, and will not reward or punish it for things outside its control (Partin 1995;Orth 2001;Anderson 2008). (The democratic credentials of such arrangements depend at least in part on such electoral accountability.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

Johns

2010

Polit Behav

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When considering elections in multi-level contexts, scholars have typically assumed-in line with second-order election theory-that the way voters approach an election depends on their attributions of responsibility, that is, on what they see as being at stake in that election. This assumption is questionable. The formal position is not always clear, and is further blurred by parties and the media. Moreover, many voters pay little attention to politics and have little incentive to trace constitutional responsibilities. In this paper I use data from election studies in two multi-level contexts, Ontario and Scotland, to explore the nature and impact of voters' attributions of responsibility. The evidence suggests that, when called upon in surveys to do so, many voters can confidently and fairly accurately assign issues to different levels of government. Yet they do not seem to consider these attributions much at elections. There is very little indication that issues weighed heavier in the decision-making of those who regarded them as the responsibility of that electoral arena. A plausible explanation is that most voters sidestep the cognitive demands imposed by multi-level elections.

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Economic Voting, Multilevel Governance and Information in Canada

Cited by 30 publications

References 63 publications

Passing the buck? Responsibility attribution and cognitive bias in multilevel democracies

Passing the buck? Responsibility attribution and cognitive bias in multilevel democracies

Dual accountability and the nationalization of party competition: Evidence from four federations

Credit Where it’s Due? Valence Politics, Attributions of Responsibility, and Multi-Level Elections

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