This book analyzes how increases in international trade, finance, and production have altered voter decisions, political party positions, and the types of public issues that parties focus on in postindustrial democracies. Although many studies interrogate whether internationalization matters in regard to policy outcomes and how globalization relates to mass protest, few examine globalization and mass politics more generally. This book argues that by reducing the room in which to maneuver in policy making, globalization reduces the importance of economic-based issues while increasing the electoral importance of non-economic issues. The argument is tested on original and existing data sources.

This book analyzes how increases in international trade, finance, and production have altered voter decisions, political party positions, and the types of public issues that parties focus on in postindustrial democracies. Although many studies interrogate whether internationalization matters in regard to policy outcomes and how globalization relates to mass protest, few examine globalization and mass politics more generally. This book argues that by reducing the room in which to maneuver in policy making, globalization reduces the importance of economic-based issues while increasing the electoral importance of non-economic issues. The argument is tested on original and existing data sources.

What drives government popularity? For decades, scholars, journalists, and political pundits alike have converged on a single answer: the economy. A rising economy lifts the popularity of the government, and if the economy's fortunes turn south, so too does that of the government. This conventional wisdom informs politicians' decisions as well as the scholarly commentary on parties and elections. Yet the conditions that underlie this model have changed in many countries as globalization has shifted control away from national policymakers, as non-economic cultural issues have risen in importance, and as our politics have become more polarized. At the same time, since the Great Recession in 2008 persistent economic volatility has kept the economy on the agenda. What, then, fuels government popularity in our current volatile environment? Are political fortunes tied to economic stability, as in the past? Or has the economy-popularity link-the popularity function-been severed by a host of new and less predictable factors in post-industrial societies? To answer these questions, Economics and Politics Revisited uses data from the Executive Approval Project (EAP), a cross-nationally comparable data on leader popularity, to model the fundamental dynamics of government support in advanced industrial democracies. Eleven country-specific chapters, each written by experts in the politics of the country, examine the role of economic performance in generating leader support in each country. In all cases, chapter authors show that the economy matters for popularity. However, the economy-popularity link is stronger in some countries than others. Further, chapters leverage EAP series to highlight change over time. Pooled analyses extend these findings, highlighting how the public's responses to the economy are reduced when political campaigns shift to non-economic issues and when parties are polarization on non-economic issues. Collectively, the volume highlights how evolving issue agendas are changing the nature of political accountability in advanced industrialized democracies. While the economy remains important, the book calls on students of political accountability to give greater attention to the role of non-economic issues. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu . The series is edited by Nicole Bolleyer, Chair of Comparative Political Science, Geschwister Scholl Institut, LMU Munich and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 was catalyst for the most precipitous economic downturn in eight decades. This book examines how the GFC and ensuing Great Recession affected electoral politics in the world's developed democracies. The initial wave of research on the crisis concluded it did little to change the established relationships between voters, parties, and elections. Yet nearly a decade since the initial shock, the political landscape has changed in many ways, the extent to which has not been fully explained by existing studies. Democracy Under Siege? pushes against the received wisdom by advancing a framework for understanding citizen attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. It makes two central claims. First, while previous studies of the GFC tend to focus on an immediate impact of the crisis, Hellwig, Kweon, and Vowles argue that economic malaise has a long lasting impact. In addition to economic shock, the economic recovery has a significant impact on citizens' assessment of political elites. Second, the authors argue that unanticipated exogenous shocks like the GFC grants party elites an opening for political manoeuvre through public policy and rhetoric. As a result, political elites have a high degree of agency to shape public perceptions and behaviour. Political parties can strategically moderate citizens' economic uncertainty, mobilise/demobilise voters, and alter individuals' political preferences. By leveraging data from over 150,000 individuals across over 100 nationally-representative post-election surveys from the 1990s to 2017, this book shows how economic change during a tumultuous era affected economic perceptions, policy demands, political participation, and the vote. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies. The resulting data are deposited along with voting, demographic, district, and macro variables. The studies are then merged into a single, free, public dataset for use in comparative study and cross-level analysis. The set of volumes in this series is based on these CSES modules, and the volumes address the key theoretical issues and empirical debates in the study of elections and representative democracy. Some of the volumes will be organized around the theoretical issues raised by a particular module, while others will be thematic in their focus. Taken together, these volumes will provide a rigorous and ongoing contribution to understanding the expansion and consolidation of democracy in the twenty-first century. Series editors: Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Ian McAllister.