| A lot of research has been done on the mechanisms by which political leaders are held accountable in elections for their management of the economy. These studies of 'economic voting' have mostly been conducted in two-party systems such as the US and Britain. The current research project broadens this perspective to multi-party systems. Moreover, it proposes to include the role of the media in models of economic voting. The project draws upon content analysis of news and survey data in fourteen EU-countries in 1999 and in twenty-five EU-countries in 2004. Data collection will have been completed when the fellowship begins. The unprecedented cross-national comparative context of this project extends both theoretically and methodologically the literatures on economic voting and the role of the media in the formation of political attitudes and perceptions of the state of the economy. |
