Abstract
We sketch the literature on economic voting and clarity of institutional responsibility. We identify the main institutional features that we expect to condition the strength of accountability for economic performance, focusing on the differences between parliamentarism and semi-presidentialism and the effect of presidential power. We take a study by Samuels and Hellwig as our framework. We describe the data that we draw upon to test for the impact of institutional clarity of responsibility on economic voting. We present the results of various statistical tests and reflect on the implications of the results for our pragmatic institutional approach to the study of leadership outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
The list of semi-presidential countries is available at: http://www.semipresidentialism.com/?p=1053. The list of parliamentary countries is available at: http://www.semipresidentialism.com/?p=195. Both accessed 19 January 2016.
- 2.
Given data availability, the final list of parliamentary countries included in the estimations with the date of the first election in brackets comprises Albania (2001–), the Czech Republic (1996–2010), Dominica (1980–), Estonia (1995–), France (1946–1962), Germany (1949–), Greece (1974–), Hungary (1990–), India (1957–), Israel (1949–), Italy (1946–), Latvia (1993–), Malta (1976–), Mauritius (1995–), Moldova (2001–2005), Slovakia (1994–1998), Trinidad and Tobago (1976–), Turkey (2002–2007), and Vanuatu (1987–). The list of semi-presidential countries included in the data set with the date of the first election in brackets comprises Austria (1949–), Bulgaria (1992–), Cabo Verde (1991–), Croatia (2000–), the Czech Republic (2013–), Finland (1948–), France (1965–), Iceland (1946–), Ireland (1948–), Lithuania (1992–), Macedonia (1994–), Moldova (1998), Mongolia (1993–), Peru (1980–1990, 2001–), Poland (1991–), Portugal (1976–), Romania (1996–), Senegal (2007), Serbia (2007–), Slovakia (1999–), Slovenia (1992–), Sri Lanka (2001–2005), Taiwan (1996–), and Ukraine (1994–2010).
- 3.
- 4.
If the incumbent president at election t was not a candidate at election t-1, we record the score for the candidate of the incumbent president’s party.
- 5.
- 6.
We identify exactly 500 legislative and presidential elections in the democracies under consideration. However, we have only 368 observations for the incumbent’s electoral score at both the t and t-1 elections. This is because for some UDS democracies, such as the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Nauru, there are no election data. In other countries where data are available, we omit some observations because we cannot stand over the reliability of the comparison of the party results for elections t and t-1.
- 7.
Specifically, we take the prespow1 scores here. They are available at http://presidential-power.com/?page_id=2154
- 8.
Here, we take the prespow2 scores from http://presidential-power.com/?page_id=2154
- 9.
Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators (accessed 22 January 2016).
- 10.
The UDS dataset starts in 1946. We consider democracy in Finland to begin in 1919, Iceland in 1918, Ireland in 1921, and Slovakia in 1990.
- 11.
Periods of cohabitation are taken from www.semipresidentialism.com/?p=3099 (accessed 22 January 2016).
- 12.
We wish to acknowledge that Timothy Hellwig and David Samuels kindly shared their original dataset with us and had already reported various model specifications in the Appendices to their 2007 article. This made it possible to replicate their original results and apply the same methods to the dataset that we constructed. Needless to say, any errors or amendments are completely our own responsibility.
- 13.
There are 165 elections common to both our dataset and Hellwig and Samuels’ dataset. However, when all data availability is taken into consideration, then only 124 are common to both. When the dependent variable is the percentage vote for the president’s party for all elections in semi-presidential regimes and for the prime minister’s party for elections in parliamentary regimes, then 109 of 274 observations in our data set also have recorded values in the Hellwig and Samuels’ dataset. When there are values in common for this variable at t and t-1 elections, then the correlation between the recorded values is 77 per cent and 85.9 per cent, respectively. Similar figures apply when other dependent variables are used. In short, even though both datasets are recording the same data, the overlap between the recorded values is relatively small. Thus, when we find the same results as Hellwig and Samuels, we can be confident that we are returning a valid result.
- 14.
If we follow this method and re-estimate Model 4, then we find that the result for high-clarity elections is 0.88***(0.22) p = 0.000, while the result for low-clarity elections is 0.53*(0.31) p = 0.098. Overall, whichever method we use, we can be confident that there is much stronger economic accountability at high-clarity elections relative to low-clarity elections.
- 15.
If we omit the control for one-party government, the results are substantively the same—presidential elections (1.08***(0.28), p = 0.000) relative to legislative elections (0.25(0.23), p = 0.273).
- 16.
We note also that they include certain observations that we exclude, such as the equivalent of the Austrian example that we provided previously.
- 17.
Note that if we restrict the sample to prime ministers and the support for the prime minister’s party at legislative elections solely in parliamentary republics , then there is strong support for economic voting (coefficient on the economy variable = 0.75***(0.24), p = 0.007, n = 114), even controlling for one-party government (full model not reported). In other words, we are not claiming that there is not economic accountability for the prime minister’s party at legislative elections in parliamentary republics . Instead, we are showing that the level of accountability is significantly greater at presidential elections relative to legislative elections. We posit that the causal mechanism generating this result is the great clarity of institutional responsibility at presidential elections relative to legislative elections.
- 18.
Hellwig and Samuels recorded more periods of cohabitation than we do. Specifically, they seem to record periods of cohabitation during presidencies that we would class as non-partisan, including elections in Lithuania , Macedonia, Portugal from 1979 to 1983, and Slovenia in 1996 and 2000.
- 19.
If, similar to Hellwig and Samuels, we include parliamentary republics in the sample, then we return the same substantive result. There is economic accountability for the president’s party when there is unified government (0.75***(0.16), p = 0.000), but not when there is cohabitation (0.48(1.09), p = 0.663). However, we prefer to report the results for the sample of semi-presidential countries only, because this is the context in which cohabitation occurs.
- 20.
The correlation between the indicator variable for one-party government and the pp1 and pp2 variables is 0.07 and 0.02, respectively.
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Elgie, R. (2018). Regime Types, Presidential Power, and Clarity of Economic Responsibility. In: Political Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-34622-3_4
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