Voting Against the Government in Times of Economic Crisis

In times of economic crisis, parties in government lose support. In western democracies, citizens express their discontent about economic circumstances not only, but to a large extent at the ballot box, as stated by theories of economic voting. But not at every recession an election is held. And especially in decentralized or federal systems, responsibilities for government and economic performance are blurred. Regardless of which level’s government is blamed, the discontent voters want to express can find several electoral channels to keep political actors accountable.
Protest voting, the use of second order elections as quasi-referenda, and also informed policy-balancing or voting for government alternation can be used to explain vote shifts against government parties in times of crisis. And regardless of the mechanism, being in government on any level attracts blame for parties, which is not confined to the level on which they are governing.
To disentangle the causal relations between economic performance, government evaluation and voting decisions, we will analyze new voter survey data from the MEDW project covering recent elections in countries more and less affected by the 2008 economic meltdown.