Economic Conditions and Electoral Outcomes: The United States and Western Europe

Does economics influence elections? How does such influence work? Under what conditions is it more or less likely to occur? Free, popular elections matter, and they make a difference precisely because, at periodic intervals, they set the limits or constraints within which the interests of business and the interests of the people pursue their political goals. These are the basic ideas addressed in the chapters of this volume. These questions may appear to be simple, but answering them is difficult. And they may appear to be trivial questions to those who contend that elections in the western democracies are at best placebos that disguise the real dynamics of power in societies still mostly characterized by the capitalist mode of production, even if the economy is directed by government. This is an argument we do not propose to address. We do believe that free, popular elections matter, and that they make a difference precisely because, at periodic intervals, they set the limits or constraints within which capitalist as well as anticapitalist elites pursue their economic and political goals. To oppose the voice of the people to the people s manipulation by elites, it seems to us, creates an unnecessary dualism. This dualism is not useful because it cannot come to grips with the question of how and why popular electorates respond as they do to more or less elite-managed economies, and how and why elites in turn take account of or are responsive to whatever messages they may receive from the electorate.