Voters’ perceptions of government performance and attributions of responsibility: Electoral control in Poland

Electoral Studies 30 (2011) 309–320

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Voters’ perceptions of government performance and attributions of responsibility: Electoral control in Poland Goldie Shabad a, *, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski b,1 a b

Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, 2080 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA Departments of Sociology and Political Science, The Ohio State University, 238 Townshend Hall, 1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 11 December 2008 Received in revised form 10 June 2010 Accepted 5 October 2010

We test the claim that elections function as a mechanism of accountability in the case of Poland, a new democracy with a fluid party system. We ask whether individuals’ vote intentions are based on assessments of governing parties’ performance. Taking into consideration attributions of responsibility for such performance, accountability exists if assessments of poor performance decrease the probability of voting for a ruling party. We use two criteria of performance: perceived change in unemployment rate and level of corruption between two consecutive elections. Using data from the Polish POLPAN panel survey, our results confirm the existence of a heterogeneous sanctioning model. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electoral control Vote intentions Unemployment and corruption Polish party system

Free, fair, competitive elections are a sine qua non of democratic rule. One of the many normative claims about such elections is that they function as a mechanism of accountability. They provide the electorate with the opportunity to hold politicians responsible for their performance in office by rewarding or punishing them accordingly at the ballot box (Przeworski et al., 1999; Lewin, 2007). If voters use elections to voice their approval or disapproval, then politicians who seek reelection will be motivated to act on behalf of the public good. Whether such elections actually serve as a means to hold leaders accountable for their performance, and hence to influence their behavior, however, has been a subject of ongoing debate (see, for example, Przeworski et al., 1999; Anderson, 2007). Many questions about electoral control remain unresolved. First, since much of the literature focuses on economic performance, we still know relatively little about whether and to what extent non-economic aspects of governmental performance also matter and, if so, under what circum* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 614 292 1047; fax: þ1 614 292 1146. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Shabad), Slomczynski.1@osu. edu (K.M. Slomczynski). 1 Tel.: þ1 614 292 8078; fax: þ1 614 292 6687. 0261-3794/$ – see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2010.10.002

stances (for some exceptions to the focus on economic performance, see Dimock and Jacobson, 1995; Fackler and Lin, 1995; Welch and Hibbing, 1997; Chang and Golden, 2004; Davis et al., 2004 with regard to corruption, and Lago and Montero, 2006 with regard to governmental handling of terrorist attacks). Second, the extent to which governmental performance (however measured) conditions electoral outcomes and voters’ behavior varies significantly across time and space (Lewis-Beck, 1988; Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, 2000; Anderson, 2007; Duch and Stevenson, 2008). It would appear, then, that various systemic factors, such as governmental arrangements, the electoral system, and the degree of party system stability and polarization (Powell and Whitten, 1993; Powell, 2000; Samuels and Hellwig, 2004; Duch and Stevenson, 2008), interacting with individual-level factors, especially ideological predispositions and attributions of responsibility for outcomes to the government (Peffley et al., 1987; Duch, 2001; Gomez and Wilson, 2001; Rudolph, 2003; Anderson, 2007), affect the degree to which elections serve as mechanisms of accountability. In particular, our understanding of how and to what extent electoral control works is still quite limited with regard to new democracies whose party systems, at the mass- and elite-level, are still very much in flux.

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Here, we address the issue of electoral accountability by focusing on Poland, a new democracy. Like many other new democracies, Poland has a fluid and quite polarized party system. The fluidity of its party system gives politicians ample opportunity to shirk responsibility for their performance by switching from governing to opposition parties prior to seeking reelection (Zielinski et al., 2005). The polarization of its party system may deter dissatisfied voters from punishing governing parties because of the lack of attractive alternatives. Moreover, the political and economic transformation Poland and other post-communist societies are undergoing, while simultaneously being subject to European Union strictures and the buffeting of the global economy, provide governing politicians ample opportunity to ‘blame’ others for poor policy outcomes, thereby making it less likely that they will face punishment at the hands of the voters. Thus, the context in which elections in Poland have taken place to date makes it a ‘hard’ case in which to test the claim that elections do function as a mechanism of accountability. We know from the extant literature on electoral outcomes in Poland and other new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe that economic conditions affect the vote shares of governing parties (see, for example, Pacek, 1994; Gibson and Cielecka, 1995; Bell, 1997; Fidrmuc, 2000; Tucker, 2006). Research also shows that the. reelection probability of individual legislative incumbents from governing parties is conditioned by their performance in office, as indicated, for example, by change in unemployment rate in the district they represent (Zielinski et al., 2005; Slomczynski et al., 2008). Numerous studies demonstrate as well that individuals’ pocketbook and/or sociotropic assessments of economic conditions affect their voting behavior (see, for example, Przeworski, 1996; Powers and Cox, 1997; Duch, 2001). Here, we also focus on the relationship between individuals’ perceptions of governmental performance and their vote choices in order to test the underlying assumption of the claim that elections serve as a mechanism of accountability, namely, that politicians who seek reelection are held to account for their performance in office because individuals in the electorate predicate their vote choice on their assessments of policy outcomes. But we probe further into the causal mechanism that links voters’ perceptions of governmental performance and their intention to reward or punish politicians for their performance by taking into account the role played by voters’ attributions of responsibility for the policy outcomes in question. Recognizing that governmental performance is a multidimensional concept, we extend the examination of electoral accountability beyond economics into another significant policy domain for which politicians may be held accountable, namely corruption, about which to date there has been relatively little systematic research in terms of how it relates to electoral control. In addition to a consideration of the impact of economic conditions, as measured by perceptions of change in the rate of district-level unemployment between elections, we assess the effect of perception of change in the level of political corruption on vote intentions. Both unemployment and corruption have been significant problems in Poland and in other postcommunist societies.

1. Electoral control: theoretical and empirical background Fair, free and competitive elections are a necessary element of democratic governance. This is so for several reasons, but among the most important is that in principle they allow citizens to hold their elected officials accountable for their actions. Politicians, ‘anticipating voters’ future judgment of their past performance,’ are ‘induced to pursue the interests of voters in order to be reelected’ (Cheibub, 2007, p. 166). There is little dispute regarding the normative claim that elections should serve as a mechanism of accountability (Przeworski et al., 1999; Lewin, 2007), nor is there controversy about the premise that politicians are motivated by the desire to hold office, although perhaps not exclusively so. There is also agreement that the link between performance and reelection depends axiomatically upon the degree to which voters can attribute responsibility for performance to incumbents of various elected offices (Powell, 2000; Anderson, 2007; Duch and Stevenson, 2008), and the extent to which voters actually do so. For example, as Peffley (1984) has argued: Before economic discontents take on political significance, people must either believe that the government produced them or that it is the government’s job to remedy them. These beliefs revolve around the issues of responsibility. the impact of economic perceptions on political behavior is [moderated] by judgments of accountability (p. 280). More generally, ‘[T]he concept of responsibility lies at the heart of theories of democratic accountability. Simply put, accountability, if it to be properly exercised, first requires citizens to make attributions of responsibility’ (Rudolph, 2003, p. 700). The claim that elections enable voters’ to exercise control has been tested primarily with regard to economic performance in the context of long-standing democracies with relatively stable and moderately polarized and fragmented party systems (for some examples, see Lewis-Beck, 1988; Paldam, 1991; Duch and Stevenson, 2008), although increasing attention has been paid to the new democracies of post-communist Europe as well (Pacek, 1994; Fidrmuc, 2000; Zielinski et al., 2005; Tucker, 2006). Using a variety of methods and indicators, the extant research suggests that economic performance has an effect on electoral outcomes as well as vote choice at the individual level, although the magnitude of its effect varies significantly across time and space (see review essays, Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier, 2000; Tucker, 2002). Moreover, research based on mass-level surveys also shows that partisan preferences and ideological predispositions affect individuals’ evaluations of performance as well as their willingness to punish their preferred parties or politicians, notwithstanding their poor performance (Anderson, 2007). We know far less from survey studies, however, about another crucial factor that links assessments of performance to voters’ behavior, namely, the extent to which voters attribute responsibility for performance to the government rather than to non-governmental domestic and foreign actors (but see, Rudolph, 2003). It stands to

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reason that whether voters intend to punish or reward incumbent politicians of governing parties depends on whether they assign blame or credit to those politicians for their performance in office. Thus, here we consider the role that such attributions of responsibility play as an intervening variable between assessments of policy outcomes and vote choices. 2. Data To address the issue of electoral control from the perspective of voters, we analyze a data set on Poland that comes from the POLPAN panel survey, which the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences supported and administered. The initial survey was conducted in 1988 on a random (probability) sample of the adult Polish population aged 21–65. Three subsequent waves of the survey were conducted in 1993, 1998 and 2003. The core of the 1988–1993 sample consists of respondents 36 years of age or older in 2003. In addition, sub-samples of younger respondents were interviewed. Adding the sub-sample of persons who were 21–25 years of age in 2003 makes the entire sample at that time representative of the adult population of Poland. Voting behavior, perception of change in unemployment and corruption, and attribution of responsibility for dealing with these two problems were among the important topics of the 2003 questionnaire. Only those who revealed their voting intentions in the 2003 study are included. Valid N ranges from 1284 to 1620, depending on the waves (1998, N ¼ 1284). The data from the POLPAN panel survey are available from GESIS, Leibniz Institut fur Sozialwissenschaften, Berlin (www.gesis.org) (see Appendix for wording of survey items, and a description of the measurement and distribution of variables). 3. Contextual background: institutions, parties, and economic and political performance We focus our analyses on elections to the 460-member Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, which plays a central role in the politics of the country by exercising major influence over the legislative process and controlling the executive. Parliamentary elections were contested in multi-member districts with open party lists. Within each district, seats in the Sejm are allocated among party lists in proportion to their list totals, and then to individual candidates based on their candidate totals. As a result, voters can influence both the distribution of seats among political parties and the distribution of seats among individual candidates within each political party. Since 1991 the party system in Poland has been in a state of considerable fluidity that is broadly characteristic of party systems in the new democracies of post-communist Europe. Up until the 2007 elections, new parties or electoral coalitions competed in each parliamentary election, and in each instance one or more of these succeeded in gaining legislative seats or in forming the Government (for example, Solidarity Electoral Action in 2001). Existing parties disappear or split with regularity. Solidarity Electoral Action, the governing party from 1997 to 2001,

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suffered both significant defections while in office and failed to pass the electoral threshold in the 2001 contest. Indeed, no governing party has managed to win reelection in consecutive elections. A further indication of Poland’s fluid party system is the relatively high degree of electoral volatility between consecutive elections. According to Lane and Ersson (2007, p. 99), the electoral volatility score between the 1991 and 1993 elections was 33.8; between 1993 and 1997, 19.4; between 1997 and 2001, 23.6; and between 2001 and 2005, 34.3.2 The Polish party system has also been relatively polarized. Since the first fully competitive election in 1991, parties have competed along multi-dimensional axes pertaining to the role of the state in the economy, Church-state relations and the place more generally of religion in the public sphere, the old regime versus new regime divide, European integration, and lastly competency in dealing with critical issues such as unemployment and corruption (Kitschelt et al., 1999; Jasiewicz, 2003; Millard, 2003). With regard to economic performance, Poland went through a period of significant macroeconomic transformation. For example, the national rate of inflation went from 600 percent in 1990 to 1 percent in 2002, while the national rate of unemployment increased from 1 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2003. These broad national trends, however, mask considerable variation in economic performance across electoral districts. Among our 2003 survey respondents, there was also considerable variation in the perceived change in district-level unemployment (see Appendix for details). Finally, with regard to our indicator of political performance, corruption has increased markedly from the mid 1990s to 2003 (the year in which our survey was taken). According to the scale of Transparency International, which ranges from 1 (most corrupt) to 10 (most clean), Poland’s score declined substantially from 5.6 for 1996 (the first year when Poland was assessed) to 3.6 for 2003 (www.transparencyinternational.org.pl). Existing surveys of public opinion during this period indicate that voters repeatedly ranked corruption, together with unemployment, as chief policy concerns (Blanchard, 1997; Kubiak, 2004; Postrzeganie Korupcji w. Polsce [Perception of Corruption in Poland], 2004). Moreover, public perceptions of political corruption, fueled by the media, became increasingly pervasive (Kolarska-Bobinska, 2002; McManus-Czubinska et al., 2004). Indeed, corruption scandals tainted several Governments, most notably the 1997–2001 Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) Government and the 2001–2005 Alliance of the Democratic Left Government. Such scandals led to the formation of explicitly “anti-corruption” parties, such as the Law and Justice Party (PiS) which formed the Government in 2005 and Civic Platform (OP) which won the 2007 election. Not surprisingly, corruption, like the state of the economy, was also a major issue during parliamentary campaigns (Millard, 2003, 2007; Szczerbiak, 2007). Nonetheless, as with

2 Electoral volatility scores can differ across studies depending on how party entries, exits, schisms, and mergers between consecutive elections are taken into account (see, for example, Birch, 2001; Tavits, 2005; Jasiewicz, 2007; Powell and Tucker, 2009).

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actual and perceived change in district-level unemployment, there was also variation in perceived change in the overall level of corruption. Fifty-three percent of respondents in our 2003 survey claimed that corruption had increased ‘somewhat’ or ‘very much’; 47 percent thought corruption had decreased ‘somewhat’ or ‘very much.’ (See Appendix.) 4. Electoral control from the perspective of voters We know from the extant literature that in Poland the performance of governing politicians affects the probability of their securing reelection. For example, incumbents affiliated with governing parties who ran in districts where unemployment increased between one election and the next were more likely to lose when voters went to the polls than were their ‘better performing’ counterparts (Zielinski et al., 2005). But what micro-level mechanisms link the fact of better or worse governmental performance to vote choices that result in reward or punishment of incumbent politicians? To get at such underlying mechanisms, we must consider individuals’ perceptions and their voting intentions. Many factors affect voter preferences. For a system of repeated elections to function as a means to hold politicians accountable, however, at the very least individuals must take into account the performance of their elected officials. Do they? Here we focus on two important dimensions of performance: unemployment and corruption. Despite the fact that both unemployment and corruption have been serious problems in Poland since the demise of the old regime and are considered to be so by the public, as we noted earlier respondents in our 2003 survey varied considerably with regard to their perceptions of change in the district-level unemployment rate and overall level of corruption since 2001, the year in which the previous parliamentary elections were held (see Appendix). Did such differing perceptions of governmental performance among voters affect the likelihood of their punishing or rewarding governing parties in the next election? Were such perceptions sufficient, by themselves, to incline voters to punish or reward governing incumbents? Or was it necessary for voters to think that governing parties were actually in a position to affect the extent of unemployment and corruption? 4.1. Perceptions of unemployment, attributions of responsibility and vote intentions We begin our analysis of electoral control from the perspective of voters with a consideration of the impact of perceptions of change in district-level unemployment and attributions of responsibility for improving or declining economic performance on intention to vote for a governing party in the forthcoming parliamentary election, taking into account certain other factors that might affect vote choice. When the survey was conducted in late 2003, the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) governed together with its junior partner, Labor Union (UP), an offshoot of Solidarity. Thus, we constructed a binary variable called intention to vote for a governing party (g), which equals one if a respondent mentioned either the SLD or UP and zero otherwise. The fact that we rely on data

regarding vote intention gathered during a parliamentary term rather than close to the time of an election minimizes the impact of idiosyncratic dynamics of a particular election campaign, and provides a less contaminated context in which to assess the effects of government performance on intended vote. The independent variable is perceived change in district-level unemployment (Dpu) since the last election. As we discussed previously, it is quite likely that voters do not uniformly attribute responsibility for such policy outcomes – in this case unemployment – to the government. The 2003 questionnaire included items pertaining to the governing parties’ ability to curtail unemployment. We assumed that respondents who stated that these parties were able to reduce unemployment would be inclined to hold them accountable in the case of poor economic outcomes (for details, see Appendix). First we estimated the following model:

Pðg ¼ 1Þ  Fðb0 þ b1 DpuÞ where P(g ¼ 1) is the probability that a voter chooses a governing party, Δpu refers to the perceived increase in unemployment, and F($) is the logistic cumulative distribution function. The null hypothesis one is as follows: If voters in Poland do not use elections to control politicians, then there should be no relation between their perceptions of change in unemployment and their intention to vote for a governing party (H10: b1 ¼ 0). Table 1 presents the results. The results disconfirm the null hypothesis one: the logit for unemployment is negative and significant at p < 0.05 for a two-tail test. Voters who perceive that unemployment has increased in their district are less inclined to vote for a governing party in the next election. One might conclude, therefore, that voters do use elections to reward or punish politicians based upon their assessments of policy outcomes. This assumes, however, a rather naïve view of electoral control in which voters are presumed to hold the government responsible for such outcomes and to act accordingly. Among respondents who thought that district-level unemployment had increased between 2001 and 2003, 30.8 percent attributed responsibility for deteriorating economic conditions to governing parties. Of those who thought that unemployment had decreased, only 7.6 percent stated that governing parties were responsible for this improvement. Does such variation in attributions of governmental responsibility for unemployment matter for whether voters sanction governing parties for perceived worsening economic conditions? If the claim that responsibility attributions play a mediating role is correct, then the effect of a perceived change in unemployment on vote intention should diminish. Those who think that unemployment has increased and who hold the government responsible for dealing with unemployment should be more likely to declare an intention to sanction governing parties at the next election than those who perceive an increase in unemployment but who do not attribute responsibility for such an increase to the government. Thus, our expectations are as follow. Applying the equation

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Table 1 Logistic regression of intention to vote for the governing parties on perceived change in unemployment and attribution of governing parties’ ability to decrease unemployment, controlling for gender, age, education, and reported vote in 1997. Simple model

A1. Perceived increase in unemploymenta B1. Attribution of responsibility for unemploymentb C1. Interaction (A1*B1)c D. Gender (male ¼ 1, female ¼ 0) E. Age (years) F. Education (years of schooling) G. Reported vote for SLD or UP in the 1997 electiond Constant Fit statisticse

Basic model

Control model

B (SE)

Exp (B)

B (SE)

Exp (B)

B (SE)

Exp (B)

0.041* (0.018) – – – – – – 2.135** (0.191) Chi square ¼ 5.43 2 LL ¼ 1041.4 R2 ¼ 0.01

0.960 – – – – – – 0.118

0.095** (0.028) 0.561* (0.284) 0.787** (0.285) – – – – 1.384** (0.226) Chi square ¼ 33.2 2LL ¼ 1013.6 R2 ¼ 0.042

0.909 0.571 0.485 – – – – 0.251

0.082** (0.029) 0.572* (0.292) 0.675* (0.291) 0.275 (0.175) 0.011* (0.006) 0.038 (0.030) 1.269** (0.192) 1.599** (0.544) Chi square ¼ 95.2 2LL ¼ 951.1 R2 ¼ 0.119

0.921 0.564 0.509 0.760 0.989 1.039 3.558 0202

**p < 0.01 (two-tail test); *p < 0.05 (two-tail test). a In five-percent intervals. b Dummy variable for 1 indicating responsibility, and 0 otherwise. c To avoid co-linearity with the interaction components responsibility for unemployment attributed to either of the two parties has been taken into account; dummy variable. d Reported in the 1998 wave; 1 – declared vote for SLD or UP, 0 – otherwise. e 2LL denotes 2 Log likelihood; R2 refers to Nagelkerke statistics.

Pðg ¼ 1Þ ¼ Fðb0 þ b1 Dpu þ b2 Ru þ b3 Ru DpuÞ we can stipulate the null hypothesis two that responsibility attributions do not play a mediating role, and that for each level of perceived change in unemployment the difference between “attributors” and “non-attributors” is 0, i.e., b1  (b1 þ b3) ¼ b3 ¼ 0. If responsibility attributions play a role, then the research hypothesis two is b1 þ b3 < 0. We present our initial results in the Basic Model, Table 1. The findings are consistent with research hypothesis two, and they allow us to reject the null hypothesis. Attributions of responsibility to the government mediate the effect of perceived increase in unemployment on vote intention. Thus, we find evidence of a heterogeneous sanctioning model in which such attributions of responsibility play a crucial role in voters’ use of elections as a mechanism of control.3 The difference between those who attribute responsibility for unemployment to governing parties and those who do not is non-linear. For those who perceived a five

3 When perception of previous level of unemployment is included in the Basic Model, the exponents of the effects are as follows: perceived increase in unemployment (0.926); attribution of responsibility (0.540); the interaction between the two (0.455); the perceived level of previous unemployment (1.023); the constant (0.152). With the exception of perceived level of previous unemployment, all variables are significant at p < 0.05. Perceived level of previous unemployment is significant at p < 0.10. It is better to model the relationship between perception of change in unemployment and perception of previous level of unemployment through a cubic function (R2 ¼ 0.419) than through a linear function (R2 ¼ 0.248). This is due to the ‘floor’ and ‘ceiling’ effects of perception of previous level of unemployment on perception of change. When perceived level of previous unemployment is very low, then a large decrease is impossible. If perceived level of previous unemployment is very high, then perception of a large increase in unemployment is unlikely. Even under these constraints, however, the effect of perceived change in unemployment on intended vote depends to some degree on perception of previous level of unemployment. Nonetheless, the interaction between these two variables on intended vote is not statistically significant.

percent increase in unemployment, for example, the predicted probability of voting for a governing party among those who do not attribute responsibility to governing parties is 3.9 percent while it is above 13.5 percent among those who think otherwise. For a perceived 10 percent increase in unemployment, the corresponding figures are 2.4 percent and 8.9 percent. For those who perceived a 20 percent increase in unemployment, however, both attribution groups converged: the predicted probability of voting for a governing party is less than two percent regardless of the extent to which respondents thought governing parties were responsible for dealing with this problem. The statistically significant effect of the interaction term (Ru*Dpu) found in the Basic Model persists and remains essentially unchanged even when other variables are introduced in the Control Model.4 In the Control Model, in addition to the three demographic variables –gender, age, and education – we added respondents’ reported vote in the 1997 parliamentary elections. We used reported vote in 1997 rather than in the 2001 elections for substantive and methodological reasons. Substantively, party choice in the 1997 elections reflected respondents’ ideological preferences. In 1997, not voting for the left (the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance or Labour Union) reflected partisan preferences despite obviously negative reactions to prominent SLD politicians by the mass media. Methodologically, making use of an independent variable that is lagged by six years rather than two minimizes the extent to which its error terms are correlated with error terms of the dependent variable.

4 Without the interaction term, the logistic regression of the vote for governing parties is: 1.948–0.037Δpu–0.979Ru where Δpu and Ru stand for perception of unemployment and attribution of responsibility, respectively. All coefficients are significant at p < 0.05, and 2 log likelihood ¼ 1021.3. Adding the interaction term improves the model since the difference between the two likelihood estimates of the models’ fit is significant according to the chi-square distribution.

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Reported vote in 1997 has the greatest impact on vote intentions. All else being equal, those in the 1998 wave of the panel study who reported having voted for the SLD or UP in 1997 were three times more likely to state an intention to cast their ballot for either one of these two parties in the forthcoming election than were those whose 1997 vote differed. Attribution of responsibility, by itself, also has a statistically significant and negative effect. But what is of interest to us here is that neither of these two variables diminishes to a great degree the effect of the interaction term. Although the Control Model explains very little of the overall variance in vote intentions, our purpose here is not to develop a comprehensive model of voting behavior. Rather, from the perspective of voters, our aim is to study the psychological mechanism that underlies electoral control. Nonetheless, the results of the Control

Model call for further examination of the relative impact of “party loyalty” versus a sanctioning model of voting behavior. Fig. 1 shows that attribution of responsibility to governing parties is an important part of the mechanism of holding politicians accountable for their performance (cf. group B with A, and D with C). Consider respondents who reported having voted for SLD or UP in the 1997 election. If in their view unemployment decreased substantially, by five percent, attribution of responsibility does not significantly affect their vote intention (groups A and B). However, if they attribute responsibility to governing parties, they intend to vote for these same parties (governing at the time of the survey) in a strikingly diminishing rate, depending on their perception of the change in level of unemployment (group B). For a maximum increase in

Fig. 1. Relationship of predicted probability of intention to vote for governing parties and perception of unemployment change in last three years, dependent on attribution of governing parties’ ability to decrease unemployment and reported vote for SLD or UP in 1997 elections.

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unemployment, the difference between “attributors” and “non-attributors” is larger than 20 percent. This is partially so because among “non-attributors” (group A) the proportion of those who stated an intention to vote for the governing parties slightly increases with the magnitude of perceived change in unemployment. Notwithstanding the impact of support for the governing parties in the 1997 election on vote intention expressed by respondents in 2003, what the results presented in Fig. 1 show is that attribution of responsibility for poor economic performance trumps ‘party loyalty’. Furthermore, in the instances where party loyalty is not a factor, the impact of attribution of responsibility provides evidence for the hypothesis of a heterogeneous sanctioning mechanism of electoral behavior. 4.2. Perceptions of corruption, attributions of responsibility, and vote intentions Although there is a burgeoning literature on political corruption, both in new and old democracies, there are few empirical studies, similar to the literature on economic voting, that considers whether the electorate’s perceptions of corruption influence vote choice (but see, Welch and Hibbing, 1997; Chang and Golden, 2004; Davis et al., 2004). We address this issue here by replicating the previous analyses but focusing on corruption rather than unemployment. Analytically, these are two different dimensions of governmental performance. In our study, the relationship between perception of change in district-level unemployment and perception of change in the level of corruption for the country as a whole is relatively weak (Pearson r ¼ 0.117). Overall, the results pertaining to corruption are similar in kind to those for unemployment. Once again, we begin with a simple model that estimates the impact of perceived change in corruption since the previous parliamentary election in 2003 (Δpc) on intention to vote for a governing party (g) in the forthcoming election:

Pðg ¼ 1Þ ¼ Fðb0 þ b1 DpuÞ If voters in Poland do not use elections to control politicians, then there should be no relation between perceptions of change in corruption and their intentions to vote for a governing party. Thus, the null hypothesis three can be stated as H30: b1 ¼ 0. As the results in Table 2 demonstrate, the null hypothesis three is strongly disconfirmed. Perceptions of corruption have a statistically significant and sizable impact on vote intentions. For each unit of perceived increase in corruption there is about a 5 percent decrease in preferences for the SLD or UP. Among those respondents who perceived that corruption had increased between 2001 and 2003, over 80 percent assigned responsibility to governing parties. Not surprisingly, voters were much more inclined to assign responsibility to governing parties for increasing corruption than they were for increasing unemployment, given the availability of other ‘culprits’ for worsening economic conditions. Do attributions of responsibility affect whether or not voters intend to sanction governing parties for

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a perceived increase in corruption, as they did for worsening economic conditions in their district? Here the Dpc and the interaction term Rc*Dpc are the relevant variables. For model P(g ¼ 1) ¼ F(b0 þ b1Dpc þ b2Rc þ b3Rc*Dpc), our research hypothesis is b1 þ b3 < 0. In the Basic Model, the interaction term and the perception of change in corruption have statistically significant and sizable effects in the expected direction, together significant at p < 0.05 level.5 Perceptions of an increase in corruption, by themselves, are related to vote intention especially if they are mediated by attributions of responsibility to governing parties.6 This result persists when additional variables are included in the Control Model. Notwithstanding the large, positive effect of having voted for the SLD and the UP in 1997 on intended support for the SLD or UP in the anticipated 2005 elections, the sizable negative effects of the interaction term together with perception of change in corruption remain, although their combined statistical significance diminishes. Generally, however, as with unemployment, there is clear evidence of a heterogeneous sanctioning model with regard to corruption. Fig. 2 demonstrates visually that this is the case. It parallels Fig. 1 but focuses on perception of change in level of corruption. The most striking finding is that attribution of responsibility for dealing with corruption has a great impact on the predicted probability of voting for governing parties. This is especially evident among those who had voted for either SLD or UP in 1997. For example, about 18 percent of 1997 SLD/UP voters who perceived a sizable increase in level of corruption and who attributed responsibility to governing parties for dealing with corruption stated that they intended to vote for these parties again in the forthcoming election (group C); in contrast, about 48 percent of their “non-attributor” counterparts (group A) indicated that they would support SLD/UP, notwithstanding their perception that corruption had increased significantly. Generally speaking, with the exception of group B, the degree of perceived change in corruption, when controlled for attribution of responsibility, appears to have little effect on vote intention. 4.3. The relative salience of unemployment versus corruption Perceptions of worsening unemployment and corruption affect the voting decision among those segments of the electorate who hold governing parties responsible for such outcomes. But is each criteria of performance equally salient to voters, or is one more consequential than

5 Without the interaction term, the logistic regression of the vote for governing parties is: 0.615–0.241Δpc–1.421Rc where Δpc and Rc stand for perception of change in level of corruption and attribution of responsibility for corruption, respectively. All coefficients are significant at p < 0.05, and 2 log likelihood ¼ 989.3. Adding the interaction term improves the model since the difference between the two likelihood estimates of the models’ fit is significant according to the chi-square distribution. 6 We cannot replicate the additional analysis regarding perceptions of unemployment described in footnote 1 for perceptions of corruption. The only item asked in the survey pertained to assessment of change in overall level of corruption over the past three years.

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Table 2 Logistic regression of intention to vote for the governing parties on perceived change in corruption and attribution of governing parties’ ability to decrease corruption, controlling for gender, age, education, and reported vote in 1997. Simple model

A2. Perceived increase in corruptiona B2. Attribution of responsibility for corruptionb C2. Interaction (A2*B2)c D. Gender (male ¼ 1, female ¼ 0) E. Age (years) F. Education (years of schooling) G. Reported vote for SLD or UP in the 1997 electiond Constant Fit statisticse

Basic model

Control model

B (SE)

Exp (B)

B (SE)

Exp (B)

B (SE)

Exp (B)

0.258** (0.101) – – – – – – 1.681** (0.235) Chi square ¼ 6.9 2LL ¼ 1039.9 R2 ¼ 0.01

0.765 – – – – – – 0.091

0.452** (0.292) 0.923** (0.333) 0.163þ (0.100) – – – – 0.943** (0.350) Chi square ¼ 51.9 2LL ¼ 805.5 R2 ¼ 0.08

0.636 0.397 0.849 – – – – 0.389

0.414* (0.181) 0.925** (0.337) 0.054þ (0.033) 0.345þ (0.1192) 0.014* (0.006) 0.012* (0.006) 1.250*** (0.211) 1.115þ (0.634) Chi square ¼ 92.2 2LL ¼ 765.1 R2 ¼ 0.142

0.661 0.396 0.947 0.716 0.986 0.988 3.489 0.328

**p < 0.01 (two-tail test) *p < 0.05 (two-tail test) þ p < 0.05 (one-tail test). a Three-point scale. b Dummy: attribution of governing parties’ responsibility to decrease corruption ¼ 1, otherwise ¼ 0. c Interaction of perception of the increase of corruption with a full scale of attribution of governing parties’ abilities to decrease corruption; see Appendix for details. d Reported in the 1998 wave; 1 – declared vote for SLD or UP, 0 – otherwise. e 2LL denotes 2 Log likelihood; R2 refers to Nagelkerke statistics.

another? We are agnostic about whether perceived deterioration of economic conditions or perceived increase in the level of corruption (in interaction with responsibility attributions) carries greater weight. To assess the relative effect of one versus the other, we estimate identical Basic and Control Models to those presented in Tables 1 and 2, but now include both Δpu and Δpc and their respective interactions terms. Thus, a full model is:

Pðg ¼ 1Þ ¼ Fðb0 þ b1 Dpu þ b2 Ru þ b3 Ru Dpu þ b4 Dpc þ b5 Rc þ b6 Rc DpcÞ Table 3 presents the results. In the case of the effects of perception of unemployment and corruption, the former is in the right direction (negative) and statistically significant, while the latter is also in the right direction (negative) but statistically insignificant. Moreover, for those who do not attribute responsibility to governing parties neither for increasing unemployment nor for increasing corruption, perceptions of unemployment has an important effect on intention to vote for those parties even if perceptions of corruption are taken into account. For those who attribute responsibility to governing parties for both unemployment and corruption, we have to note that b1 þ b3 is significant (p < 0.05) while b4 þ b6 is not. Therefore, we claim that among competing factors that affect the decision to sanction incumbent parties, unemployment is more important than corruption. Control variables do not change this result. 5. Discussion Our findings support the claim that the system of repeated elections functions as a mechanism of accountability in Poland. Voters take both economic performance and political performance into account in deciding whether to reward or sanction governing political parties. A heterogeneous sanctioning model, however, appears to characterize voters’ decision-making. The decision to sanction governing parties for increasing unemployment

and corruption strongly depends on whether governing parties are held responsible for dealing with these problems and ameliorating them. In addition, economic and political outcomes do not carry equal weight for voters’ decisions. If both are seen in a negative light and governing parties are held to account for poor performance, it is the economy, unemployment in this case, that prevails. The existence of a heterogeneous sanctioning model, insofar as it is based upon attributions of responsibility, gives wide berth to influence on electoral control by both formal institutions and the nature of the party system. Singly or taken together they affect the clarity of responsibility for performance by making it ‘objectively’ easier or more difficult for voters to know which set of elected officials to hold accountable for governmental performance – if, in fact, they do hold elected officials responsible rather than other actors. Formal institutional arrangements and the nature of the party system also affect clarity of responsibility by making it easier or more difficult for politicians to take the credit for good performance and to blame others for poor performance and thus to undermine further the ability of voters to figure out whom to hold responsible (Weaver, 1986). In addition, the varying salience of issues that affect voters’ choices provides an incentive for governing politicians to try to set the agenda in such a way so as to downplay issues that may be more costly to them at the ballot box and to highlight those that will reap them the most votes (Jacobs and Shapiro, 2000). Insofar as this is the case, attribution of responsibility for policy outcomes is a ‘constructed’ phenomenon, one that can be shaped by both politicians and the media. Although the system of repeated elections in Poland, in basic terms, works as expected, there are strong reasons to suppose that a number of factors diminish the extent of actual electoral control that exists in Poland. We highlight two here. First, Poland’s transformation to democracy and a market economy, coupled with changes in the international environment in which Poland operates, provide ample opportunity for politicians to deflect responsibility

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317

Fig. 2. Relationship of predicted probability of intention to vote for governing parties and perception of corruption change in last three years, dependent on attribution of governing parties’ ability to decrease corruption and reported vote for SLD or UP in 1997 elections.

for poor economic and political performance by placing blame, for example, on the private sector (both domestic and foreign), the strictures imposed by EU integration, or the ‘legacies of the past’ (for survey data on attributions of responsibility for economic, social and political problems, see, for example, Postrzeganie Korupcji w. Polsce [Perception of Corruption in Poland], 2004). If such ‘blaming’ tactics are successful, then voters are less likely than otherwise might be the case to hold governing politicians responsible for economic and social ills and hence to punish them at the polls. Second, two features of the party system in Poland diminish the actual extent of electoral control. These are not unique to Poland and are broadly characteristic of party systems in post-communist Europe and other new democracies. The polarization of Poland’s party system

impedes electoral control by inhibiting those voters who had previously voted for opposition parties but who are satisfied with the government’s performance from ‘switching’ sides and vice versa. Our data suggest that only about one percent of those who reported having voted for losing parties in 2001 stated an intention to vote for either the SLD or UP. In contrast, about 24 percent of those who said that they had voted for one of the governing parties at the time of the survey expressed the intention to vote for an opposition party; almost twice as many (41.8 percent) said that they would sit out the next election. (Indeed, only 40.5 percent of the electorate voted in the 2005 parliamentary elections, down from 46 percent in 2001.) For those who previously supported opposition parties neither improvement nor deterioration in economic or political performance appears to play a role in their vote decision and thus

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Table 3 Logistic regression of intention to vote for the governing parties on perceived change in unemployment and corruption, and attribution of governing parties’ ability to decrease unemployment and corruption, controlling for gender, age, education, and reported vote in 1997. Basic model

A1. Perceived increase in unemploymenta B1. Attribution of ability to decrease unemploymentb C.1. Interaction (A1 *B1)c A2. Perceived in corruptiond B2. Attribution of ability to decrease corruptione C2. Interaction (A2*B2)f D. Gender (male ¼ 1, female ¼ 0) E. Age (years) F. Education (years of schooling) G. Reported vote for SLD or UP in the 1997 electiong Constant Fit statisticsh

Control model

B (SE)

Exp (B)

B (SE)

Exp (B)

0.080** (0.033) 0.493 (0.324) 0.650* (0.321) 0.261 (0.190) 0.964** (0.332) 0.054 (0.107) – – – –

0.923 0.609 0.522 0.770 0.381 0.947 – – – –

0.073* (0.033) 0.465 (0.332) 0.574þ (0.326) 0.239 (0.191) 0.965** (0.338) 0.064 (0.109) 0.321þ (0.194) 0.011þ (0.006) 0.030 (0.034) 1.224** (0.212)

0.930 0.628 0.563 0.778 0.381 0.938 0.725 0.989 1.031 3.401

0.253 (0.414) Chi square ¼ 69.1 2 LL ¼ 788.3 R2 ¼ 0.11

0.776

2.600# (0.555) Chi square ¼ 105.9 2 LL ¼ 751.3 R2 ¼ 0.16

0.074

**p < 0.01 (two-tail test) *p < 0.05 (two-tail test) þ p < 0.05 (one-tail test). a In five-percent intervals. b Dummy variable for 1 indicating responsibility, and 0 otherwise. c To avoid co-linearity with the interaction components responsibility for unemployment attributed to either of the two parties has been taken into account; dummy variable. d Three-point scale. e Dichotomy: attribution of governing parties’ responsibility to decrease corruption ¼ 1, otherwise ¼ 0. f Interaction of perception of the increase of corruption with a full scale of attribution of governing parties’ abilities to decrease corruption; see Appendix for details. g Reported in the 1998 wave; 1 – declared vote for SLD or UP, 0 – otherwise. h 2LL denotes 2 Log likelihood; R2 refers to Nagelkerke statistics.

matters little in terms of holding elected officials accountable, at least in these respects. Other criteria must come into play, most likely ideological preferences, given the sharp divide between the then governing and opposition parties over Church-state relations, EU integration, and foreign policy toward Russia (Jasiewicz, 2003). The fluidity of Poland’s party system also undermines democratic accountability. In the context of an unstable party system, voters’ reliance on party labels to sort legislative incumbents into those who are responsible for policy outcomes and those who are not allows some legislators to escape accountability by switching from a governing to a non-governing party before an election (Zielinski et al., 2005). Prima facie such behavior on the part of previously governing party incumbents reduces the extent of political control exercised by the Polish electorate because voters mistakenly spare some incumbents who should be sanctioned for their poor performance. Thus, for reasons having to do with system-level characteristics, the connection between performance and effective electoral control in Poland is quite likely to be attenuated. In so far as other new democracies, both in Eastern Europe and in Latin America, have similarly polarized and fluid party systems, one can expect effective electoral control to be compromised in those cases as well. Whether our results are generalizable to other new democracies, of course, requires extensions of our research in several ways, all of which require that one go beyond the analysis of a single country. Here we suggest two possibilities. The first is to consider how varying electoral rules, executive–legislative relations, and party systems interact with repeated elections to influence the degree of electoral

control. Theoretical and empirical studies suggest that institutional arrangements that promote clarity of responsibility enhance electoral accountability, whereas those that disperse institutional and partisan control over policymaking diminish it (Powell and Whitten, 1993; Powell, 2000; Rudolph, 2003; Samuels and Hellwig, 2004; Anderson, 2007; Duch and Stevenson, 2008). But there remains considerable debate as to which types of constitutional format and electoral rules actually facilitate accountability of politicians to voters (Lewin, 2007). The second extension of our research pertains to the multi-dimensionality of governmental performance. Here, we have incorporated corruption, in addition to unemployment, as a criterion of performance and found that it has considerable effect on voters’ choices. Political corruption is pandemic in many new democracies (as well as in some old ones), and scholars and policy analysts alike have paid increasing attention to it. Nonetheless, there are as yet few rigorous cross-national studies that examine its relative significance for electoral outcomes and voting behavior (apart from its obvious effect on electoral fraud). The issue of political corruption, perhaps more so than poor economic performance, has serious implications not only for the quality of democracy but also for its legitimacy (Seligson, 2002; Anderson and Tverdova, 2003; Bowler and Karp, 2004; Holmes, 2006), because its relation to electoral control enhances or diminishes the incentive of politicians to deal effectively with the problem. Thus, the extent to which corruption affects vote choices and the reelection probability of those politicians who are held responsible for it should be of utmost concern to scholars of democratic accountability.

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319

Appendix. Measurement and distribution of variables Variables*

Description

Max/Min

Mean

Standard Deviation

Voting Intention to vote for governing parties Vote for SLD or UP in the 1997 election as reported in the 1998 wave

Declaring intention to vote for SLD or UPa Reported vote on the basis of the standard retrospective question

0/1

0.122

0.327

0/1

0.177

0.381

The difference between assessment of unemployment in 2003 and three years prior to that year.b Overall qualitative assessment in response to a single questionnaire item.c

15.0/20.0

3.875

4.737

1/3

2.321

0.798

Composite indexd dichotomized.

0/1

0.280

0.449

Composite index dichotomized.

0/1

0.871

0.335

Dichotomized.

0/1

0.602

0.490

1/12

8.230

3.460

0/1 21/81 6/21

0.505 48.5 11.6

0.500 15.7 2.9

Perception Perceived increase of district-level unemployment Perceived increase of corruption Attribution of responsibility D. Attribution of governmental parties’ responsibility for unemployment E. Attribution of governmental parties’ responsibility for corruption Interaction terms Interaction term for perception of unemployment and attribution of responsibility Interaction term for perception of corruption and attribution of responsibility Demographic characteristics H. Gender I. Age J. Education

e

Index.

f

(Male ¼ 1, Female ¼ 0) In years Years of schooling, from 6 for less than elementary to 21 for PhD

* Refers to those who revealed their voting preferences in the 2003 study (including respondents who explicitly stated that they would abstain). Valid N ranges from 1284 to 1620, depending on the waves (1998, N ¼ 1284). a On the basis of answers to the following questions: If the elections for Sejm and Senate were called for today, would you participate in them? If yes: For what party would you vote? We assigned 1 to all answers indicating SLD (or its components) or UP, and 0 otherwise. Some respondents used improper names for parties. In all cases when it was possible to categorize such answers in terms of existing parties, the coders did so. b The 2003 questionnaire contained two items: (1) In your opinion, what is the percentage of unemployment in your voievodship? and (2) In your opinion, what was the percentage of unemployment in your voievodship three years ago? The estimates were rounded to the closest points of the five-percent intervals, and then estimates for item (2) were subtracted from estimates for item (1). c Do you think that in Poland in the last three years the level of corruption has increased (a) very much, (b) somewhat increased, (c) remained at the same level, (d) somewhat decreased, or (e) decreased very much? We assigned 3 to (a), 2 to (b) and (c), and 1 to (d) and (e). d The questionnaire contained two items pertaining to the attribution of responsibility to governing parties’ responsibility to for controlling unemployment: (1) To what extent is the SLD able to decrease the unemployment level? and (2) To what extent is UP able to decrease the unemployment level? The answers to these questions are as follows: (1) high, (2) medium (3) low, (4) not at all. The sum of scores, divided by two, reflects respondents’ opinion that neither of the two parties is able to decrease unemployment. We dichotomized this summery index so that for each considered party the response is not at all. e The index is constructed in analogous manner to that for the attribution of responsibility to governing parties for controlling unemployment. (1) To what extent is the SLD able to decrease the level of corruption? and (2) To what extent is UP pable to decrease the level of corruption? The answers to these questions are as follows: (1) high, (2) medium (3) low, (4) not at all. The sum of scores, divided by two, reflects respondents’ opinion that neither of the two parties is able to decrease corruption. We dichotomized this summary index such that 4 ¼ 1, 0 otherwise. f To avoid co-linearity of the interaction term with its components, we multiplied it by the index of attribution of responsibility for corruption, consisting of the sum of scores for the two items (see, e).

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