The Electoral Advantage of the Left in Times of Fiscal Adjustment

Abel Bojar

LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series from European Institute, LSE

Abstract: Despite widely held views on fiscal adjustment as a political minefield for incumbents, the empirical literature on the issue has been surprisingly inconclusive. A crucial variable that has been often overlooked in the debate is partisan politics. Building on the micro-logic of Albert Hirschman’s “exit, voice and loyalty” framework, this article offers a novel theoretical perspective on the conditioning impact of partisanship in the electoral arena. Due to their more limited exit options at their disposal, left-wing voters are less likely to inflict electoral punishment on their parties, offering the latter an electoral advantage over their right-wing rivals. Relying on the largest cross-national dataset to date on the evolution of close to 100 parties’ popularity rating in 21 democracies, time-series-cross-section results confirm this electoral advantage.

Keywords: fiscal adjustment; partisan politics; exit voice and loyalty; party competition; elections; popularity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eiq:eileqs:103

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