Economic Voting in Volatile Contexts: National and Sub-national Politics in Latin America.

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The proposed research explores the broader comparative relevance of the literature on economic voting by moving outside of the North Atlantic basin to focus on newer democracies and less stable economic contexts. Drawing on both individual- and aggregate-level data, the research tests hypotheses about economic voting at the national and sub-national levels of government in three major countries of Latin America. The central working hypothesis is that voters in Latin America are sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuations and punish or reward governments accordingly, but that the propensity toward economic voting varies with macroeconomic context and institutional conditions. The several components of the proposed research project are designed to contribute to theoretical work on economic voting, enhance our understanding of the functioning of democracy at both the national and sub-national level in contemporary Latin America, and establish a stronger theoretical basis for understanding the ways in which variations in the structure of party competition and macroeconomic volatility condition political behavior.