Economic Effects on the Vote in Norway

A body of accumulating evidence appears to support the finding that collectivist economic concerns and assessments of government economic performance directly influence voting behavior independent of other predispositions and cleavages. This seems reasonable and is well documented across both cultures and time periods. What remains more inconclusive is how to explain fluctuations in the electoral impact of personal economic worries. Our comparison of Norwegian and U.S. data has suggested that cognitive, social and political factors may all influence this association. The political information and cues for connecting the two spheres may be absent for most elections and for most people. Nevertheless, in some elections and under certain conditions individual economic worries can have a significant, independent impact on election outcomes. A major goal of future political-economy research, therefore, should be to specify more completely those factors that facilitate the linkage of personal and collectivist economic concerns.