As described in Chapter 2, the Transitional Identity Model is based on the premise that economic conditions affect parties' electoral fortunes based on their Transitional Identity, as opposed to their position in or out of the current government. The model yields two hypotheses. In Chapter 7, I assess the empirical support for the Old Regime hypothesis, which predicts that Old Regime parties should do better where economic conditions are worse. In this chapter, I examine the degree of empirical support for the New Regime hypothesis, which predicts that New Regime parties should enjoy more electoral support in regions of the country where economic conditions are better.

Overall, there is significantly more empirical support for the New Regime hypothesis than there is for the Incumbency hypothesis. Of the forty New Regime parties in the study – see Table 6.1 for coding – there is strong empirical support for the New Regime hypothesis in twenty-five of these cases, or 63% of the time. Moreover, there is only one case in the entire study in which we are at least 90% confident that the candidate performed better when the economy was worse. There is support for the hypothesis across a wide variety of contexts, including presidential and parliamentary elections, elections in Russia and East-Central Europe, and elections that occurred throughout the decade. Interestingly, the hypothesis generates the least support in Slovakia, a point that will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.