Is It the Economy, Stupid? Economic Voting in Eastern Europe in the Shadow of the Great Recession

The study examines three key assumptions of the literature on economic voting in light of the impact of the post-2008 Great Recession in one of the regions most severely affected: Eastern Europe. Firstly, this electorally highly volatile environment sets out a crucial test of the extent to which economic crises have any influence on electoral choices beyond the effect of the political crises of the day. Secondly, the Eastern European context in which the different political sides are associated to an unequal extent with communist legacies challenges the “colorblind” hypothesis of the economic voting literature, namely that incumbents are universally punished for the state of the economy. Based on the literature on Eastern European party competition, the study tests the hypothesis that left parties with post-communist roots face greater difficulties to maintain their electoral coalition in times of hardship; while parties on the right have a greater ease to avoid being punished for the economy, by competing on the cultural dimension. Thirdly, the study inquires the extent to which the Great Recession increased the importance of economic considerations for electoral choices in Eastern Europe, compared to their importance in previous electoral cycles.

Methodologically, the study systematically disentangles individual and contextual effects of the impact of the Great Recession. It does so through using multilevel statistical analysis on yearly individual level Eurobarmeter data, collected after 2000, with individuals nested in parties, nested in countries. Overall the papers contributes to the literature on economic voting, Eastern European voting behavior and party competition.