Electoral accountability has received a fair amount of study, via investigations of economic voting. To the extent the government delivers bad economic performance, the electorate tends to vote against it, so the argument and evidence go. Given these conditions, the government appears to be held accountable by voters. Of course, important as the issue of the economy can be, there are other valence issues at work holding the government accountable, in particular crime and corruption. To these, the international issue of terrorism might be added. Using CSES data, we plan to answer the question of the relative impact of these valence issues on incumbent support, in a comparative democratic context.
