Economic fluctuations and political self-placement

Athina Economou (), Stavros Gavroglou and Christos Kollias

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2013, vol. 46, issue C, 57-65

Abstract: This paper examines whether economic conditions affect citizens’ political self-placement on the left–right scale of the political spectrum. A cohort of factors influence and determine such self-placements by citizens including ideology, social values, partisan allegiances, class perceptions, socio-economic characteristics, personality traits. Using data from the Euro-barometer surveys for twelve European Union countries over the period 1985–2009 this study investigates the effect that economic fluctuations have on political self-placement. Results reported herein from both fixed-effects and random-effects regression models indicate that, once we control for the differential transitory and permanent effects of economic conditions, we find that in the long-run and during economic upturns, there seems to be a quantitatively mild movement towards the political middle from the two opposite ends of the left–right dimension.

Keywords: Economic conditions; Political self-placement; European Union; Panel models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:46:y:2013:i:c:p:57-65

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2013.07.001

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