1
Students of mass political behavior have long argued that a country’s economic
conditions affect people’s beliefs that government is legitimate and effective as well as
citizens’ propensity to be involved in the political process. In fact, a sizeable literature
has investigated the link between economic conditions and turnout at the macrolevel (see
Radcliff 1992 for an excellent review). Painting with a broad brush, the empirical
findings from this research point in several directions: First, they indicate that the impact
of macroeconomic fluctuations on turnout, both in terms of size of impact and direction,
differs between the developed and the developing world. While a bad economy
depresses turnout in the industrialized societies, it increases turnout in the less
industrialized ones (Aguilar and Pacek 2000; Bahry and Lipsmeyer 2001; Radcliff 1992).
Second, the impact of the business cycle on turnout is more pronounced in countries with
less generous welfare states (Pacek and Radcliff 1995; Radcliff 1992).
Related but much less extensive strands of research have examined the impact of
economic conditions on other forms of participation and citizen involvement, finding that
a good economy generally fosters more involvement (van Deth and Elff 2004).
However, this literature is limited in scope and depth, and the most plausible inference to
be drawn from it is that the question of how the macroeconomy is related to different
kinds of participation—at the aggregate level—remains open. While these studies have
produced valuable insights, their focus has consistently been on examining general
macroeconomic performance indicators such as GDP growth or unemployment rather
than income.
As mentioned at the outset, the supposition that material welfare influences
whether and how citizens participate in democratic politics has a long and rich tradition
Convention