Ideological Polarization and Retrospective Economic Voting

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Michael Hall, Wichita State University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
anes-test.dta application/x-stata 9.5 MB 11/02/2018 08:15:AM
anes-test.txt text/html 2.3 MB 11/02/2018 08:17:AM

Project Citation: 

Hall, Michael. Ideological Polarization and Retrospective Economic Voting. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-11-02. https://doi.org/10.3886/E107143V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Economic voting, in which voters reward or punish incumbents for the state of macroeconomic conditions, varies in its impact on U.S. presidential elections over time.  This paper argues the degree of ideological polarization between the dominant parties conditions the impact of economic voting.  Economic voting is more common when polarization is low, as more of the electorate are swing voters at the median for whom macroeconomic conditions are a key determinant of voting.  As polarization increases, more partisan and ideological voters turn out to vote, and a larger share of voters choose candidates on partisan and ideological grounds.  As polarization increases more of the electorate has perceptions of economic performance based on partisan perceptions.  Tests on these hypotheses use data from the American National Election Study for the past eleven elections. 


Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms polarization
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage USA
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1972 – 2012
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) survey data
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes
The data are drawn from the American National Election Study (ANES).  The data come from their cumulative file. 


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V1 [2018-11-02]

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