Did the Financial Crisis Save the Red-Green Government in the 2009 Norwegian Election – the Dissatisfaction with Rising Expectations Superseded By a Grace Period?
-
Anders Todal Jenssen
Anders Todal Jenssen (b. 1957), received his doctorate in social science from what is now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he is now a professor of political science at the Department of Sociology and Political Science.
and
Åshild Male Kalstø
Åshild Male Kalstø (b. 1984), received her MA in political science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2010, and now works as a consultant at the Statistics Section of the Norwegian government’s Work and Welfare Directorate.
Abstract
According to much of the voluminous literature on economic voting, governments are rewarded or punished for their economic policies as a consequence of economic changes. Economic problems decrease the chance of re-election, whereas good times improve the incumbent’s chances. The last three national elections in Norway give evidence to the contrary. In the 2001 and 2005 elections all economic indicators pointed upwards, but the governments were nevertheless voted out of office. In 2009 the international financial crisis challenged the Norwegian economy, but the government was still re-elected. We argue that this must be explained by introducing two new factors into the economic voting argument: the role of the media and the role of popular expectations. According to the sociotropic voter argument, voters assess the national economy, rather than their personal economy, when they decide how to vote. We argue that sociotropic voters rely heavily on the media as their source of information. In a complex economy, the voter’s personal experience is of little relevance when it comes to assessing the government’s economic policies. The media also form people’s expectations. In 2001 and 2005 expectations exceeded the economic output, whereas in 2009, the public’s expectations were well below the government’s ability to deliver, creating a rare grace period for the governing parties. A content analysis of two major newspapers demonstrates that the financial crisis dominated the media agenda for more than three months, and that the tone in the coverage was positive towards the government during this period. A significant change in party support in this period is demonstrated through auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling of a time series based on opinion polls.
About the authors
Anders Todal Jenssen (b. 1957), received his doctorate in social science from what is now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he is now a professor of political science at the Department of Sociology and Political Science.
Åshild Male Kalstø (b. 1984), received her MA in political science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2010, and now works as a consultant at the Statistics Section of the Norwegian government’s Work and Welfare Directorate.
©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Planting the Seeds of Change Inside? Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance.
- The Takeoff after Lisbon: The Practical and Theoretical Implications of Differentiated Integration in the EU
- "May the Best Man Win": Local Government Representatives
- Party Identification, Leader Effects and Vote Choice in Italy, 1990-2008
- Study of Volatility and Party System Transformation in the 2010 Election of the Czech Chamber of Deputies
- Neo-liberalism, Semi-clientelism and the Politics of Scale in Mexican Anti-poverty Policies
- Women’s Substantive Representation in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives: Testing the Added Value of a ‘Claims-making’ Approach
- A “New” Anarchism? – On Bifurcation and Transformation of Contemporary Anarchist Thought and Praxis
- Did the Financial Crisis Save the Red-Green Government in the 2009 Norwegian Election – the Dissatisfaction with Rising Expectations Superseded By a Grace Period?
- Historical Institutionalism and Comparative Federalism
- Principals or Beginners? The Regions and the Local Railway System (1997–2011)
- Decision Costs and Welfare Effects of Democratic Voting Rules: an Experimental Analysis
- Raising the Stakes. Passing State Budgets in Scandinavia
- European Governance: On the Relationship Between Democratic and Non-democratic Deliberation Within the European Multi-level System
- Political Development of Lithuania: A Comparative Analysis of Second Post-communist Decade
- The Normalization of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations in 1964 and the Formation of the “One-China” Principle: Negotiations over Breaking French Diplomatic Relations with the Republic of China Government and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the Sole Legitimate Government
- Towards a Representative Bureaucracy: Promoting Linguistic Representation and Diversity in the Swiss and Canadian Federal Public Services
- Liberalism, Social Justice, and Individual Responsibility
- The Effects of Economic Performance on Infrastructure Spending at the State and Local Levels
- Toward a Liberal Theory of Punishment: Locke, Property, and Individualism
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Planting the Seeds of Change Inside? Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance.
- The Takeoff after Lisbon: The Practical and Theoretical Implications of Differentiated Integration in the EU
- "May the Best Man Win": Local Government Representatives
- Party Identification, Leader Effects and Vote Choice in Italy, 1990-2008
- Study of Volatility and Party System Transformation in the 2010 Election of the Czech Chamber of Deputies
- Neo-liberalism, Semi-clientelism and the Politics of Scale in Mexican Anti-poverty Policies
- Women’s Substantive Representation in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives: Testing the Added Value of a ‘Claims-making’ Approach
- A “New” Anarchism? – On Bifurcation and Transformation of Contemporary Anarchist Thought and Praxis
- Did the Financial Crisis Save the Red-Green Government in the 2009 Norwegian Election – the Dissatisfaction with Rising Expectations Superseded By a Grace Period?
- Historical Institutionalism and Comparative Federalism
- Principals or Beginners? The Regions and the Local Railway System (1997–2011)
- Decision Costs and Welfare Effects of Democratic Voting Rules: an Experimental Analysis
- Raising the Stakes. Passing State Budgets in Scandinavia
- European Governance: On the Relationship Between Democratic and Non-democratic Deliberation Within the European Multi-level System
- Political Development of Lithuania: A Comparative Analysis of Second Post-communist Decade
- The Normalization of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations in 1964 and the Formation of the “One-China” Principle: Negotiations over Breaking French Diplomatic Relations with the Republic of China Government and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the Sole Legitimate Government
- Towards a Representative Bureaucracy: Promoting Linguistic Representation and Diversity in the Swiss and Canadian Federal Public Services
- Liberalism, Social Justice, and Individual Responsibility
- The Effects of Economic Performance on Infrastructure Spending at the State and Local Levels
- Toward a Liberal Theory of Punishment: Locke, Property, and Individualism
