Economics and politics

How do voters weigh economic concerns in their calculus of partisan choice in voting booths and opinion polls? How do voters arrive at their perceptions of economic conditions and assign responsi bility for them to incumbent govern ments? And when do people go beyond electoral reactions in expressing their sentiments about economic well-being?

The contributors to Economics and Politics employ sophisticated methods of analysis to isolate the effects of specific economic conditions such as unemploy ment and inflation. While some look at the effects of aggregate data on the electorate taken as a whole, others examine indi vidual perceptions of economic conditions gleaned from survey data. The contribu tors, from several European countries as well as the United States, consider the relationships between economics and politics both cross-nationally and individu ally in West Germany, the United States, France, Britain, and Italy.

Taken together, these contributions present the most comprehensive compara tive assessment of economic influence on mass political behavior. The crucial role of strategic politicians, intervening in the economy as well as in public evaluations of the economy, receives considerable attention; so do interventions such as wars and political turnover. In sorting out economic facts and assigning responsibility to politicians amid such uncertainty, the publics of Western democracies display considerable sophistication.