Learning the economic vote: Hungarian forecasts, 1998-2010

Abstract

Although Hungary is a new democracy, the behavior of its voters can be understood. They are systematically responsive to economic conditions, particularly unemployment. We find that the Hungarian electorate, as economic voters, has moved from a policy-oriented to an incumbency-oriented strategy. That is, in early elections, they favored the Socialists in the face of rising unemployment, regardless of whether they were in government. In the later elections, however, they have voted against the ruling Socialists, as a response to rising unemployment. Overall, they have learned to become classical economic voters, rewarding the government for good times, punishing it for bad. We demonstrate this pattern with regression models, by forecasting the 1998 and 2010 national elections. We conclude with a discussion of the likely outcome of the latter contest. © 2009 Policy Studies Organization.