In this chapter, we will pull together the theoretical expectations we derive from the relevant literature (much of which has already been referred to in Chapter 1) and set them out in the form of testable hypotheses. These expectations mainly concern the effects of economic conditions on voting. They will be complemented, however, by expectations that are included to produce the control variables we need if our models are to be well specified. Having set out the relevant hypotheses, we will then describe the data with which we test those hypotheses, and the economic and political settings from which the data were obtained.

Hypotheses

Our theorizing can be divided into three categories. First is the fundamental expectation upon which all of the economic voting literature is based: that government standing with the voters will be hurt by bad economic times and (perhaps) helped by good economic times (e.g., Tufte 1978; Chrystal and Alt 1981; Hibbs 1977; Fair 1988; Lewis-Beck 1988; Markus 1988, 1992; Erikson 1989; Mackuen, Erikson, and Stimson 1992; Powell and Whitten 1993; Whitten and Palmer 1999; Nadeau and Lewis-Beck 2001), together with its generally unspoken corollary relating to opposition parties (that they should in some way suffer less or even benefit from bad economic conditions). Then we move on to the elaborations of this hypothesis that become possible in the context of models that distinguish between different government (and opposition) parties.