In Chapter 1, I introduced the concept of standard and conditional economic voting hypotheses. The purpose of this chapter is to lay out the specific standard and conditional hypotheses tested in the book and to present the theoretical arguments underlying each of them. The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, I briefly address some of the characteristics that differentiate elections in post-communist countries from elections in more established democracies. In the second section, I introduce the standard economic voting models and their associated hypotheses: the Referendum Model, which produces the Incumbency hypothesis; and the Transitional Identity Model, which yields the New Regime and Old Regime hypotheses. This section also includes a discussion of how these hypotheses relate to some of the larger themes in the existing economic voting literature. The final section of the chapter introduces a number of different frameworks for thinking about conditional economic voting hypotheses, as well as the specific conditional economic voting hypotheses associated with each of these frameworks.

Distinguishing Characteristics of Elections in Transition Countries

Before turning to models of regional economic voting in transition countries, it is important to consider the ways in which elections in these countries differ from elections in advanced industrialized democracies. Considering the differences between elections in established democracies and transition countries can help inform the manner in which we ought to build off of – but also depart from – the existing economic voting literature in designing a study appropriate for the postcommunist context.