Linking policies and economic voting - Explaining reelection in the case of the Spanish Socialist Party

    Authors

    K. Hamann

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Comp. Polit. Stud.

    Keywords

    SPAIN; STRATEGIES; Political Science

    Abstract

    Economic voting literature has shown that voters hold governments responsible for the state of the economy. Election studies have also found that voters punish governing parties that divert from their campaign promises and move their policy positions. These bodies of literature cannot convincingly explain the repeated reelection of the Socialist Party, which passed supply-side economic measures at odds with campaign promises and its traditional ideology. Furthermore, the party succeeded in gaining reelection regardless of the state of the economy and despite consistently high unemployment. In this article, it is argued that to better understand the repeated electoral success of the Socialist Party, three additional factors have to be taken into account: the party system compensatory policies, and internal party politics. These factors allowed the Spanish Socialist Party to build an electoral support coalition based on lower classes, rural voters, and voters dependent on state-subsidized income.

    Journal Title

    Comparative Political Studies

    Volume

    33

    Issue/Number

    8

    Publication Date

    1-1-2000

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    1018

    Last Page

    1048

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000089735000002

    ISSN

    0010-4140

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