Voting when the economy goes bad, everyone is in charge, and no one is to blame: The case of the 2009 German election

The economy was a major issue in Germany’s 2009 election. The global economic crisis did not spare Germany, whose economy is tightly integrated into the global economy. So when the German economy experienced a historical shock, did voters connect their views of the economy with their vote choice? Or did they, as some research has suggested, recognize Germany’s dependence on global markets and cut the government slack, especially when the government consists of the country’s two major parties? Using pre- and post-election panel surveys from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), we investigate the weight that voters gave to the economy, relative to other considerations, when casting their ballot and whether governing parties were disproportionately judged based on the state of the economy.

► Examines the effects of economic evaluations on vote choice in the 2009 German election. ► Uses surveys collected before and after 2009 election. ► Analysis finds that voters did not blame the government for the nation's economic downturn. ► Voters who personally had suffered during the crisis deserted the governing parties in almost equal measure and threw their support to smaller opposition parties.