Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:13:45.297Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economic Changes and Government Popularity in Scandinavian Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Mikko Mattila
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The study of government popularity functions has been popular among political scientists since the pioneering work of the early 1970s. Most of the studies have concentrated on data from the United States or from Great Britain. The reason for this has probably been the availability of data over long periods of time in these countries, and the fact that in two-party systems the effects of economic changes on government popularity seem to be stronger than in countries with multi-party government coalitions. However, some studies have also shown that in countries with multi-party governments the effects of economic conditions are similar, although possibly slightly less strong.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 583 - 595
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a good review, see Nannestad, Peter and Paldam, Martin, ‘The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years’, Public Choice, 79 (1994), 213–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, Mueller, Dennis C., Public Choice II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 282–4Google Scholar; Lewis-Beck, Michael, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1990), pp. 13–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See, for example, Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan, ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’ (paper delivered at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Political Methodology Group, Tallahassee, 1993)Google Scholar; Clarke, Harold D., Dutt, Nitish and Kornberg, Allan, ‘The Political Economy of Attitudes toward Polity and Society in Western European Democracies’, Journal of Politics, 55 (1993), 998–1021Google Scholar; Bingham, G., Powell, and Whitten, Guy D., ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 391–414Google Scholar; Suzuki, Motoshi, ‘Domestic Determinants of Inflation’, European Journal of Political Research, 23 (1993), 245–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Lane, Jan-Erik, Martikainen, Tuomo, Svensson, Palle, Vogt, Gunnar and Valen, Henry, ‘Scandinavian Exeptionalism Reconsidered’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 5 (1993), 195–230, at pp. 195–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Olson, Mancur, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 90–3.Google Scholar

6 Madsen, Henrik J., ‘Electoral Outcomes and Macro-Economic Policies: The Scandinavian Cases’, in Whiteley, Paul, ed., Models of Political Economy (London: Sage, 1980).Google Scholar

7 Jonung, Lars and Wadensjö, Eskil, ‘The Effect of Unemployment, Inflation and Real Income Growth on Government Popularity in Sweden’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 83 (1979), 343–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr and Madsen, Henrik J., ‘The Impact of Economic Performance on Electoral Support in Sweden, 1967–1978’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 4 (1981), 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Lybeck, Johan A. ‘A Simultaneous Model of Politico-Economic Interaction in Sweden, 1970–82, European Journal of Political Research, 13 (1985), 135–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Miller, Arthur H. and Listhaug, Ola, ‘Economic Effects on the Vote in Norway’, Political behavior, 6 (1984), 301–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Sørensen, Rune Jørgen, ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Government Popularity in Norway, 1963–1986’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 10 (1987), 301–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Paldam, Martin and Schneider, Friedrich, ‘The Macro-Aspects of Government and Opposition Popularity in Denmark 1957–78’, Nationaløkonomisk Tidsskrift, 118 (1980), 149–70.Google Scholar

13 Nannestad, Peter and Paldam, Martin, ‘Sammenhængen mellem samfundsøkonomi, privatøkonomi og tilslutningen til regeringspartierne. Nogle metodeproblemer, Markus' model og en analyse af tilslutningen til KVR-regeringen 1988–1990’, Politica, 25 (1993), 189–206.Google Scholar

14 Mattila, Mikko, ‘Taloudellisten tekijöiden vaikutus hallituspuolueiden suosioon Suomessa 1983–1993’, Politiikka, 36 (1994), 146–54.Google Scholar

15 Sørensen, , ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Government Popularity in Norway’, p. 318.Google Scholar

16 Stimson, J. A., ‘Regression in Space and in Time: A Statistical Essay’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 914–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hsiao, Cheng, Analysis of Panel Data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Sayrs, Lois W., Pooled Time Series Analysis (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 The Finnish data was obtained from Taloustutkimus Oy, the Swedish data from SIFO Ab, the Norwegian data from Norsk Gallup Institutt A/S and the Norwegian Social Science Data Services, and the Danish data from Gallup A/S and the Danish Social Science Data Archive.

18 King, Gary, Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 181–2.Google Scholar

19 Two time series are said to be co-integrated if there is a linear combination of them that is integrated of a lower order than the individual series (Engle, Robert F. and Granger, Clive W. J., ‘Co-Integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation and Testing’, Econometrica, 55 (1987), 251–76).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Error correction models are gaining popularity in political science. See, for example, Durr, Robert, ‘What Moves Policy Sentiment?’ American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 158–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clarke, Harold D. and Stewart, Marianne C., ‘Prospections, Retrospections and Rationality: The “Bankers” Model of Presidential Approval Reconsidered’, American Journal of Political Science, 38 (1994), 1104–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Mueller, , Public Choice II, pp. 277–86.Google Scholar

22 Nordhaus, William D., ‘Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2 (1988), 1–69, pp. 32–4.Google Scholar

23 Brody, Richard A., Assessing the President: The Media. Elite Opinion, and Public Support (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 83–90.Google Scholar

24 The number of these dummies differs slightly from the number of governments in Table 1 because the changes in the level of support that are due to minor changes in the composition of the coalition must also be controlled.

25 Beck, Nathaniel ‘Estimating Dynamic Models is Not Merely a Matter of Technique’, Political Methodology, II (1985), 71–89Google Scholar; Beck, Nathaniel, ‘The Economy and Presidential Approval: An Information Theoretic Perspective’, in Norpoth, Helmut, Lewis-Beck, Michael and Lafay, Jean-Dominique, eds, Economics and Politics: The Calculus of Support (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Beck, and Katz, , ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’.Google Scholar

26 See, for example, Headrick, Barbara and Lanoue, David J., ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’, Western Political Quarterly, 44 (1991), 67–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nannestad, Peter and Paldam, Martin, ‘Velfærdsstat, mistillid og styrbarhed’, Økonomi & Politik, 67 (1994), 14–35.Google Scholar Theoretically, it seems to be quite acceptable to use changes in the case of inflation, because people can adjust to stable inflation. However, in the case of unemployment, the choice between undifferenced and differenced figures is theoretically not so clear. The differenced series is used here because ‘a quick glance’ shows that the unemployment figures were not stationary during the ten-year period.

27 Price, Simon and Sanders, David, ‘Modelling Government Popularity in Postwar Britain: A Methodological Example’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 317–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Greene, William H., Econometric Analysis, 2nd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 444–59.Google Scholar

29 Beck, Nathaniel, Katz, Jonathan N., Alvarez, R. Michael, Garrett, Geoffrey and Lange, Peter, ‘Government Partisanship, Labor Organization, and Macroeconomic Performance: A Corrigendum’, American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 945–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan N., ‘When GLS Fails: Alternative Estimation of Cross-National Panel and Related Models’ (unpublished. Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 1994).Google Scholar

30 All the models also include dummy variables for each government coalition to control for different levels of popularity resulting from larger support bases. Because these coefficients have no meaningful substantial interpretation they are not reported in the table.

31 Greene, , Econometric Analysis, pp. 426–8Google Scholar; Beck, and Katz, , ‘Panel Methods for Cross-National Data’, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar The results indicate that autocorrelation is not a problem in any of the models.

32 Greene, , Econometric Analysis, pp. 363–5.Google Scholar

33 Kmenta, Jan, Elements of Econometrics (Singapore: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1990), pp. 437–42Google Scholar; Jaccard, James, Turrisi, Roberty and Wan, Choi K., Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990), pp. 30–1.Google ScholarPubMed

34 See, for example, Lardaro, Leonard, Applied Econometrics (New York: Harper-Collins, 1993), p. 446Google Scholar; or Gujarati, Damodar, Basic Econometrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), pp. 338–9.Google Scholar

35 Table 2 contains three models in which each set of new variables is included individually, and two models in which they are all included simultaneously. The following results are based on these last models, since it would otherwise be possible to draw erroneous conclusions because some important variables would be omitted. One example of such a case would be to examine the effect of social democrats in the government without controlling for the size of the government. These results could be spurious, because social democrats do not usually join coalition governments (especially in Norway and in Sweden). Another example of the importance of controlling for asymmetry effects would be seen if in times of economic hardship, the average size of the government coalition were larger than normal.

36 Powell, and Whitten, , ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting’.Google Scholar

37 Lewis-Beck, , Economics and Elections, pp. 108–9.Google Scholar

38 Mueller, , Public Choice II, pp. 291–4Google Scholar; Suzuki, , ‘Domestic Determinants of Inflation’.Google Scholar

39 Powell, and Whitten, , ‘A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting’, pp. 404–5.Google Scholar

40 Bloom, Howard S. and Price, Douglas H., ‘Voter Response to Short-Run Economic Conditions: The Asymmetric Effect of Prosperity and Recession’, American Political Science Review, 69 (1975), 1240–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Clagget, William, ‘A Reexamination of the Asymmetry Hypothesis: Economic Expansions, Contractions and Congressional Elections’, Western Political Quarterly, 39 (1986), 621–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Headrick, and Lanoue, , ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’.Google Scholar

43 Headrick, and Lanoue, , ‘Attention, Asymmetry, and Government Popularity in Britain’.Google Scholar