What Is and What May Never Be: Economic Voting in Developing Democracies Academic Article

abstract

• 2017 by the Southwestern Social Science Association Objective: We propose and test a theory that media freedom determines the extent of economic voting in developing democracies. Methods: Building on extant work that suggests economic voting takes place in developing democracies much like it does in established democracies (Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, 2008), we test our theory using a new collection of aggregate data from elections in 22 developing democracies in Africa. Results: Media freedom rather than political freedom may be a bigger determinant of economic voting in developing democracies. Moreover, the threshold of political development needed for economic voting is lower than previously suggested by the literature. Conclusion: Economic voting is alive and well in developing democracieseven those with relatively low levels of economic and political development.

authors

• Whitten, Guy

published proceedings

• SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

author list (cited authors)

• Wimpy, C., & Whitten, G. D.

citation count

• 7

complete list of authors

• Wimpy, Cameron||Whitten, Guy D

publication date

• September 2017

publisher

• Wiley  Publisher

published in

• SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY  Journal

keywords

• 38 Economics
• 3801 Applied Economics
• 44 Human Society
• 4408 Political Science

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1111/ssqu.12444

start page

• 1199

end page

• 1111

volume

• 98

issue

• 3

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12444