Abstract
This paper considers the issue of the budget deficit and its influence on the 1988 presidential election. Specifically, we are concerned with the role of partisan economic schemas, and the possibility that many voters might have supported the incumbent Republicansbecause of the deficit problem (reasoning that the GOP, regardless of the failures of the previous 8 years, was the best party to reduce government spending). We find that the deficit issue, despite its high salience, did not have an overwhelming impact on the 1988 race, but what effect it did have apparently favored the Republicans. We demonstrate that “schematic” voters concerned about the deficit were, indeed, more likely to support George Bush over Michael Dukakis. We conclude by discussing the importance and limits of partisan schemas in explaining economic voting.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Abramowitz, A.I., D.J. Lanoue, and S. Ramesh (1988). Economic conditions, causal attributions, and political evaluations in the 1984 presidential election.Journal of Politics 50: 848–863.
Baker, R.K., G.M. Pomper, and W.C. McWilliams (1987).American Government, 2nd ed., New York: Macmillan.
Bloom, H.S., and H.D. Price (1975). Voter response to short-run economic conditions: The asymmetric effect of prosperity and recession.American Political Science Review 69: 1240–1254.
Downs, A. (1957).An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Farah, B.G., and E. Klein (1989). Public opinion trends. In G.M. Pomper (ed.),The Election of 1988: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.
Fiorina, M.P. (1981).Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fiske, S.T., and S.E. Taylor (1984).Social Cognition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
The Gallup Report (Report No. 229), October, 1984.
Hamill, R.C., M. Lodge, and F. Blake (1985). The breadth, depth, and utility of class, partisan, and ideological schemata.American Journal of Political Science 29: 850–870.
Hibbs, D.A., Jr. (1977). Political parties and macroeconomic policy.American Political Science Review 71: 1467–1487.
Kiewiet, D.R. (1983).Macroeconomics and Micropolitics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kinder, D.R., and D.R. Kiewiet (1979). Economic grievances and political behavior: The role of personal discontents and collective judgments in congressional voting.American Journal of Political Science 23: 495–527.
Kramer, G.H. (1971). Short-term fluctuations in U.S. voting behavior, 1896–1964.American Political Science Review 65: 131–143.
Kramer, G.H. (1983). The ecological fallacy revisited: Aggregate- vs. Individual-level findings on elections, and sociotropic voting.American Political Science Review 77: 92–111.
Lanoue, D.J. (1988).From Camelot to the Teflon President: Economics and Presidential Popularity Since 1960. New York: Greenwood Press.
Lau, R.R., and D.O. Sears (eds.) (1985).Political Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lodge, M.G., and R. Hamill (1986). A partisan schema for political information processing.American Political Science Review 80: 505–519.
Miller, Warren E. and the Center for Political Studies (1982).The American National Election Study, 1980. Volume 1: Pre and Post Election Surveys (2d ICPSR ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
Monroe, K.R. (1984).Presidential Popularity and the Economy. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Peffley, M., S. Feldman, and L. Sigelman (1987). Economic conditions and party competence: Processes of belief revision.Journal of Politics 49: 100–121.
Pomper, G.M. (1989). The presidential election. In Gerald M. Pomper (ed.),The Election of 1988: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.
Tufte, E.R. (1978).Political Control of the Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lanoue, D.J. Partisan schemas and economic voting: The federal budget deficit and the 1988 presidential election. Polit Behav 13, 285–302 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992865
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992865
Keywords
- Government Spending
- Presidential Election
- Budget Deficit
- Economic Schema
- Federal Budget