Issue Voting or Economic Voting? The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis on Voting Decisions in the 2013 Federal Election in Germany

Our paper focuses on possible effects of the Eurozone crisis on voter behavior in the 2013 federal election and contrasts the perspectives of issue and economic voting. Since 2010, the Eurozone crisis and costly bail-out packages have been heavily discussed in German politics. The government’s decisions to support affected countries were highly controversial. However, at the time of the election the crisis discourse had lost its imminent danger given Germany’s improving economic performance. While the first observation would support the argument that the policy options about managing the crisis mattered for voting decisions, the latter would in contrast support the classic economic voting thesis according to which voters reward the governing parties for positive economicperformance. Our results show that voters relied strongly on performance evaluations and trust in Chancellor Merkel, while policy options for the handling of the Eurozone crisis mattered to a lesser extent for voters’ decisions.