ECONPARTY · The Impacts of Economic Growth and Decline on Party Behavior
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-09-01 → 2024-09-14
- EU contribution
- €203,852
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Impacts of Economic Growth and Decline on Party Behavior
It is well known that the economy shapes the electoral prospects of political parties: voters punish incumbent parties for a bad economy and reward them for a good one. But how do parties react to the economy? This question is theoretically and normatively important. Parties are the main vehicles for representing citizens' interests in democracies, and these interests are in part shaped by the economy. As such, it is important to investigate how parties respond to periods of economic improvement and decline, particularly the obstacles that parties face when attempting to win elections and the types of issues that parties end up addressing. Once we uncover the relationship between economic conditions and parties' policy positions, citizens will be able to better gauge how well their political representatives advocate for their interests and preferences, as well as whether and how parties shape the preferences of citizens during economic decline and improvement. Yet, despite the theoretical and normative implications for democratic representation, there are only few existing works that address this question, and most of them examine how parties combat economic downturns by changing their positions on the economy or altering their emphasis on economic issues. ECONPARTY's main objective is to illuminate how parties pick and choose the issues they promote, as well as the positions they take on these issues, during both economic decline and growth. It does so by using an original, interdisciplinary, and cross-country comparative approach. The findings reveal how the economy affects democratic representation. Because parties' electoral prospects are an important component of the project's theoretical thread, I first uncovered how citizens cast their votes during economic decline and improvement. Next, I examine parties' electoral strategies during both bad and good economic times. These findings are packaged into five research articles.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The economy influences which parties citizens vote for. But how do parties respond to macroeconomic conditions? Despite the theoretical and normative implications on democratic representation, existing studies have yet to provide an answer. ECONPARTY addresses this lacuna by investigating how the economy influences party behavior. It begins with this idea: parties electorally disadvantaged by the economy alter their issue profiles during elections and in legislative activities, in order to reduce voters' attention on the economy. Economic growth motivates parties to differentiate their issue profiles, while decline motivates them to do the opposite (converge). ECONPARTY will first investigate how parties differentiate or converge on three types of issues – redistribution, public services, and non-economic issues such as immigration. It will then examine the impacts of sustained growth and decline on party polarization. ECONPARTY will provide a new research agenda on the political effects of the macroeconomy, and boost methodological innovation in the fields of political economy and party competition.ECONPARTY will construct two game-theoretic models of the macroeconomy's impacts on parties' electoral and legislative strategies (models 1 and 2). The models will yield testable hypotheses. It will then utilize automated content analysis to code election manifestos and legislative bills from 1960 to 2020 in 10 democracies. Large-N statistical analyses will follow.The fellowship is crucial for my becoming a professor at a European university. Under the guidance of Prof. Johannes Lindvall, I will gain 1) new research skills in political economy and public policy, 2) scientific skills in time-series models, and 3) transferrable skills in academic publishing, grant management, and public outreach. These skills will help establish my expertise in political economy and democratic representation, and help me inform the public on the economy's potential in shaping politics.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- LUNDS UNIVERSITET · LundCoordinatorSweden
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union