IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/atlecj/v45y2017i1d10.1007_s11293-016-9528-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Party Impacts on Direct Democracy: the 2015 Greek Austerity Referendum

Author

Listed:
  • Megan E. Hansen

    (Utah State University)

  • William F. Shughart

    (Utah State University)

  • Ryan M. Yonk

    (Utah State University)

Abstract

On July 5, 2015, Greek voters were asked whether to approve or reject the terms of an austerity program offered by the European Union (EU) to resolve an ongoing financial crisis. With a turnout rate of 62.5% overall, 61.3% of Greeks voted “no.” While a majority of voters in every district opposed the bailout’s terms, the margin against the proposed austerity measures ranged from 51.2% in Lakonias to 73.8% in Chanion. This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the “no” vote across Greece’s 56 electoral districts. Our analysis is grounded in public choice theories of why large numbers of people turn out to vote in mass elections. In addition to controlling for standard “instrumental” vote motives, we ask whether political party labels, which serve as summary measures of partisan positioning, and party platforms, which express partisan preferences on ballot questions, are salient in determining electoral outcomes. Holding constant the unemployment rate and average voter age (at the regional level) and the fraction of young people casting ballots for the first time on July 5, 2015 (at the district level), we find that the percentage of ‘no’ votes was reduced significantly by voter support for Greece’s leading pro-austerity party (New Democracy) in the previous nationwide election held in January 2015. In contrast, voter support in January for the anti-austerity party (Syriza), led by sitting Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, had no measurable impact on July’s referendum results. This finding offers support for both instrumental and expressive theories of voting and bolsters the claim that political parties can shape electoral outcomes on questions decided by an institution of direct democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Megan E. Hansen & William F. Shughart & Ryan M. Yonk, 2017. "Political Party Impacts on Direct Democracy: the 2015 Greek Austerity Referendum," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 5-15, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:45:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11293-016-9528-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-016-9528-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11293-016-9528-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11293-016-9528-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    2. Hooghe, Liesbet & Marks, Gary, 2009. "A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 1-23, January.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. Richard Cebula, 2004. "Expressiveness and voting: Alternative evidence," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 32(3), pages 216-221, September.
    5. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat-Voting-Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Mosler & Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2019. "How to Handle the Fiscal Crisis in Greece: Empirical Evidence Based on a Survey of Economic Experts," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 375-399, September.
    2. Georgios Xezonakis & Felix Hartmann, 2020. "Economic downturns and the Greek referendum of 2015: Evidence using night-time light data," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(3), pages 361-382, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eiji Yamamura, 2011. "Effects of social norms and fractionalization on voting behaviour in Japan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1385-1398.
    2. Jelle Koedam, 2021. "Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 655-675, December.
    3. Tomáš Frömmel, 2017. "The Rational Expectations Hypothesis: Theoretical Critique," E-LOGOS, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2017(2), pages 4-12.
    4. Damien Bol & Philipp Harfst & André Blais & Sona N Golder & Jean-François Laslier & Laura B Stephenson & Karine Van der Straeten, 2016. "Addressing Europe’s democratic deficit: An experimental evaluation of the pan-European district proposal," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(4), pages 525-545, December.
    5. Roger Congleton, 2007. "Informational limits to democratic public policy: The jury theorem, yardstick competition, and ignorance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 333-352, September.
    6. Luca Carrieri, 2024. "Awakening the Europhile Giant: EU Issue Voting in Western and Central‐Eastern Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 262-284, January.
    7. Richard J. Cebula & Christopher M. Duquette & Robert Boylan, 2017. "Panel Data Analysis of Regional Differentials in the Registered Voter Turnout Rate and the Expected Benefits of Voting for Minorities," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 29-34, March.
    8. Richard J. Cebula & Gigi M. Alexander, 2017. "Female Labor Force Participation and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the American Presidential Elections," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 8(2).
    9. Thomas DiLorenzo, 1982. "Utility profits, fiscal illusion, and local public expenditures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 243-252, January.
    10. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski & Aleksandar B. Todorov, 2022. "Foundations of contemporary economics: George Stigler and the Chicago school of economics – on price theory and information economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 452-472.
    11. Neil J. Smelser, 1992. "The Rational Choice Perspective," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(4), pages 381-410, October.
    12. Richard J. Cebula & James E. Payne & Ira S. Saltz, 2017. "Determinants of Geographic Voter Participation Rate Differentials: the 2014 Mid-Term Election," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 35-43, March.
    13. Darcy W E Allen, 2020. "When Entrepreneurs Meet:The Collective Governance of New Ideas," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number q0269, September.
    14. Brad R. Taylor, 2016. "Exit and the Epistemic Quality of Voice," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 133-144, June.
    15. Lacombe, Donald J. & Coats, R. Morris & Shughart II, William F. & Karahan, Gökhan, 2016. "Corruption and Voter Turnout: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(2), December.
    16. Brad R. Taylor, 2020. "The psychological foundations of rational ignorance: biased heuristics and decision costs," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 70-88, March.
    17. Cebula, Richard J., 2019. "The Voter Turnout/Relative Unemployment Rate Hypothesis," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 72(3), pages 255-280.
    18. Etzioni, Amitai, 2010. "Behavioral economics: A methodological note," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 51-54, February.
    19. Do Won Kim, 2020. "Populism Amidst Prosperity: Dimensionality, party competition and voter preference in the era of populism: The case of England, 2010-2017," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 160, European Institute, LSE.
    20. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat‐Voting‐Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:45:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11293-016-9528-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.