Economic Conditions affect Support for Prime Minister Parties in Scandinavia

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelfagfællebedømt

  • Martin Vinæs Larsen
Previous research has not been able to identify a relationship between objective economic indicators and support for governing parties in the Scandinavian countries. This is potentially problematic, as it suggests that political leaders are not held electorally accountable for the economic conditions they provide for their electorates. In this article, it is suggested that this null-finding is a result of the particularities of the Scandinavian electoral context, which makes it difficult to identify the effects of the economy on electoral support. To bolster this argument, the relationship between unemployment, economic growth and support for prime minister parties is re-examined in two datasets. The first is a dataset of Scandinavian elections, and the second is a yearly Danish vote function, which was constructed using election polls. Across both datasets, it is found that if one simply correlates support for the prime minister's party with economic conditions, there is no relationship; however, if one specifies a statistical model, which takes the Scandinavian context into account, it is possible to identify a statistically significant effect of economic conditions on electoral support. Based on this finding, the article concludes that economic conditions do shape electoral support for prime minister parties in Scandinavia.
Bidragets oversatte titelØkonomiske forhold påvirker støtte til Statsministerpartier i Skandinavien
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer2
TidsskriftScandinavian Political Studies
Vol/bind39
Udgave nummer3
Sider (fra-til)226-241
Antal sider15
ISSN0080-6757
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2016

ID: 155830653