A Cross-National Analysis of the Positional Economics Thesis

It is almost axiomatic that ‘it’s the economy stupid’ regarding understanding what motivates vote choice cross-nationally. Moreover, while much ink has been spilt as to how economics impacts election outcomes, most of the existing scholarship has focused on the impact of voter perceptions of economic performance (the valence model). Yet, there has been a recent appreciation that economic voting is multidimensional and is composed of a trifecta of valence, patrimonial, and positional dimensions. While interest in the patrimonial dimension has been growing (e.g., Lewis-Beck et al. 2013; Stubager et al. 2013), the impact of positional economics – voters’ views on economic policy is much less explored. Our study seeks to fill this void. Our paper examines the impact of economic policy preferences on the vote in over 30 states. Using Module 4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and hierarchical models, we show that economic policy preferences have a substantial impact on the vote in many countries. Further, our paper explores what circumstances motivate voters to vote based on economic positions as we test whether macroeconomic conditions such as the type of welfare state or political factors such as the degree of polarization between parties heightens the saliency of positional economic voting motivations. Our research contributes to the developing literature on positional economic voting and demonstrates that economic voting is indeed multidimensional.