<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Electoral accountability is considered the mechanism through which voters hold governments responsible for their performance. Questioning the traditional approach of economic voting theory, the article focuses on the influence exerted by the political context—comprehensively considered as government clarity of responsibility, availability of governing alternatives, electoral formula, and freedom of the media—on the accountability mechanism in eleven countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using individual and aggregate data collected after the 2014 European Elections by the European Election Study (EES), the present article analyses this process in its double dimension of answerability and enforcement (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_pce-2016-0012_ref_051_w2aab2b8b6b1b7b1ab1ac51Aa">Schedler 1999</xref>). Our findings suggest that voters’ ability to express discontent with economic performance in new European democracies is strongly influenced by specific characteristics of the political context. A stable and cohesive government as well as a free media system, in particular, seem to facilitate performance voting in the region.</p></abstract>

Electoral accountability is considered the mechanism through which voters hold governments responsible for their performance. Questioning the traditional approach of economic voting theory, the article focuses on the influence exerted by the political context—comprehensively considered as government clarity of responsibility, availability of governing alternatives, electoral formula, and freedom of the media—on the accountability mechanism in eleven countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using individual and aggregate data collected after the 2014 European Elections by the European Election Study (EES), the present article analyses this process in its double dimension of answerability and enforcement (Schedler 1999). Our findings suggest that voters’ ability to express discontent with economic performance in new European democracies is strongly influenced by specific characteristics of the political context. A stable and cohesive government as well as a free media system, in particular, seem to facilitate performance voting in the region.

Much More Than Economy: Assessing Electoral Accountability in the CEE Member States

Politics in Central Europe

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Electoral accountability is considered the mechanism through which voters hold governments responsible for their performance. Questioning the traditional...

Much More Than Economy: Assessing Electoral Accountability in the CEE Member States

Published Online: Oct 17, 2016

Page range: 51 - 68

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pce-2016-0012

Keywords
Central-Eastern Europe, electoral accountability, political system, mass media

© 2016 Andrea Fumarola, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Much More Than Economy: Assessing Electoral Accountability in the CEE Member States

Published Online: Oct 17, 2016

Page range: 51 - 68

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pce-2016-0012

KeywordsCentral-Eastern Europe, electoral accountability, political system, mass media

© 2016 Andrea Fumarola, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Central-Eastern Europe, electoral accountability, political system, mass media