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Economic Crisis, Incumbent Performance and Regime Support: A Comparison of Longitudinal Data from West Germany and Costa Rica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Steven E. Finkel ,
Edward N. Muller  and
Mitchell A. Seligson
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Extract

While much is known about the effects of the economy on the popularity and electoral fortunes of political leaders, political scientists know very little about how economic decline and political performance influence support for the political regime and the stability of democratic systems. We use three cross-national longitudinal surveys to address this issue: two collected in Costa Rica in the midst of a severe economic crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s; and one in West Germany during the recession of the mid-1970s. We show that in both countries, overall support for the political regime remained extremely high during the economic decline, while satisfaction with incumbent performance fluctuated much more sharply. Moreover, at the individual level, changes in satisfaction with incumbent performance were only weakly related to changes in regime support. These results provide strong evidence suggesting that if democracies enter economic downturns with initially high levels of regime support, they will be able to withstand even severe, prolonged crises of economic performance.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 329 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

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12 The response rates for the panels were affected not only by limited funds but also by the difficulties in locating respondents from the 1978 and 1983 surveys, neither of which were conducted with a panel design in mind. In regard to basic SES and attitudinal characteristics, however, the panel respondents differ little from the cross-section respondents, as the figures in the Appendix Table make clear. The only significant differences are in age, where the 1978–85 panel contains older respondents on average (since younger individuals could not, obviously, have been included in the original interview), and a greater proportion of primary education respondents in the cross-section than in either panel survey. But the equal proportion of university respondents is reassuring, because the generally lower degree of regime and performance support found in the university setting could have distorted the generalizability of the findings reported here. On all other variables, the distribution in the three samples are very similar.

13 Heidenheimer, Arnold, Heclo, Hugh and Adams, Carolyn, Comparative Public Policy (New York: St Martin's Press, 1983), pp. 126–33.Google Scholar

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18 It can be shown, with some very simple algebraic manipulations, that the following model reduces to the static score model where Regime Support in 1985 is a function of Regime Support in the previous survey, Performance Satisfaction in 1985 and Performance Satisfaction in the previous survey, and the control variables. See Kessler, Ronald and Greenberg, David, Linear Panel Analysis (New York: Academic Press, 1981), pp. 7–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kessler and Greenberg note (p. 11) that ‘linear difference equations (those involving change in X as dependent variable) and equations involving only static scores (X1 and X2) are mathematically equivalent and can readily be transformed into one another’. Analysis of static scores is quite common with panel data (cf., e.g., Markus, Gregory, Analyzing Panel Data (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1980)Google Scholar; and Finkel, Steven E., ‘The Effects of Participation on Political Efficacy and Political Support: Evidence From a West German Panel’, Journal of Politics, 49 (1987), 441–64)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but in this case, we use the change score transformations because our theoretical interest is in describing change in regime support as a function of change in performance satisfaction during the economic crisis.

19 Because of the relatively small number of cases in the panel surveys, we used mean substitution for missing values, which saved seven cases for the 1978–85 analysis and five for the 1983–85 sample.

20 By ‘natural’ regression effects, we mean the tendency of initially high scores on a variable to decline over time, and the tendency of initially low scores on a variable to increase. One reason this pattern occurs is that initially extreme scores are caused in part by a very large positive or negative error term. When the variable is measured at another point in time, there is a high likelihood that the error term will be smaller; hence extreme scores tend to become less extreme over time. Regression to the mean can also result from measurement error and the effects of omitted variables which are captured in the error term. See Markus, , Analyzing Panel Data, pp. 45–8.Google Scholar

21 If an individual increased in Performance Satisfaction, then the positive change variable equalled the amount of change; otherwise, the positive change variable was 0. If an individual decreased in Performance Satisfaction, then the negative change variable equalled the amount of change; otherwise, the negative change variable was 0. Thus, the positive signs for the coefficients for the Positive Change variables in Tables 1 and 2 indicate that as individuals become more positive in performance satisfaction, they become more favourable towards the regime. The positive signs for the coefficients for the Negative Change variables indicate that as individuals evaluate incumbents more negatively, they become less favourable towards the regime.

22 On negativity in political evaluations, see Lau, Richard, ‘Negativity Effects in Political behavior’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 119–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kernell, Samuel, ‘Presidential Popularity and Negative Voting’, American Political Science Review, 71 (1977), 44–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 See Lewis-Beck, Michael. ‘Comparative Economic Voting: Britain, France, Germany, Italy’, American Journal of Political Science, 30 (1986), 315–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kuechler, Manfred, ‘A Trend Analysis of System Support in West Germany’, paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 11 1986.Google Scholar

24 See Lewis-Beck, , ‘Comparative Economic Voting: Britain, France, Germany, Italy’Google Scholar; Monroe, Kristen, ed., The Political Process and Economic Change (New York: Agathon Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and the many references cited in those works.

25 The slight positive effect of change in performance evaluation on change in regime support in both West Germany and Costa Rica supports theoretical speculation about the role of effectiveness as a source of legitimacy sentiment. See Conradt, David, ‘Changing German Political Culture’, in Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, eds, The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1980)Google Scholar; and Malloy, James M. and Seligson, Mitchell A., Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987).Google Scholar