| Abstract [eng] |
This research analyses economic voting in 11 countries from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) during the period 2006-2015. This research is deeply rooted in context of Andrew Roberts's research. He explores economic voting in 10 countries from this region (all from this research except Croatia) since second free elections in all countries until the year 2005. He described the process in this region as 'hyper-accountability' because virtually almost all cabinets were punished regardless of economic indicators. The main assumption of economic voting presumes that voters are rational. They understand and reflect conditions of economy. If they believe that economy is going well, they reward incumbents during elections. Conversely, if they are not satisfied with economic conditions, they punish incumbents and vote for other political parties. Researchers usually use unemployment, Gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation statistics as the main indicators of economic voting. Hence, it is worth to test economic voting in Central and Eastern Europe during the period 2006-2015. This period was exceptional. Until 2009, almost all countries lived in comparative prosperity. Unemployment level declined. GDP growth was considerable. On the contrary, most countries fell into recession from 2009 to 2013. Finally, economies recovered from 2013 to 2015. Therefore, the period between 2005 and 2015 was dynamic and also brought numerous political changes. Several hypotheses were formulated for this research. Firstly, the electorate will punish all incumbents. Despite the fact that Central and Eastern Europe countries are quite new democracies, the research of Andrew Roberts proved that voters understand incumbents' responsibility for economic results. Moreover, voters tend to exaggerate the incumbent role in economy. Secondly, inflation and unemployment correlate negatively and GDP growth positively with incumbents' results. This hypothesis reflects logic of mechanism of reward and punishment. Inflation is measured as annual statistics. Unemployment is measured in two different ways: as a change during incumbents' term and as net indicator (level of unemployment at the quarter when election takes place). There are two different types of model with GDP growth, too. The first model measures GDP growth during the year of elections. The second model measures the means of GDP growth during incumbents' term. Thirdly, right-wing parties are punished for high inflation while left-wing parties are punished for high level of unemployment. This hypothesis is supported by theoretical background designed for testing economic voting in Western Europe and Latin America. So, it is worth testing in different political backgrounds. Correlation coefficient (Pearson's R) and ordinary least squares regression (OLS) is used to check the hypothesis. The first hypothesis is correct. Voters tend to punish all incumbents as they did during the period between 2006 and 2015. The difference between two periods virtually does not surpass a standard error. The second hypothesis is partially correct. Inflation does not correlate with incumbent's vote change. Unemployment (as change during incumbent's term) correlates strongly only with prime minister's party vote change. GDP growth is the most appropriate indicator. All four models which contain GDP growth are statistically significant and correlations are strong. The third hypothesis is false. There are no statistically significant correlations between different groups of parties and inflation or unemployment. |
