Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Social Sciences Seminar

Abstract: Scholars, pundits, and politicians are raising alarms about democratic backsliding in the United States. Existing explanations, such as globalization or polarization, however, tend to have increased roughly linearly over decades, differing from the temporal patterns of backsliding. Building on theories of retrospective and economic voting, I investigate whether changes in American fiscal policy over the past half-century are a source of its democratic discontent. I show that Half-Keynesian policy---excessive stimulus during economic contractions and insufficient surpluses during economic expansions---corresponds more closely than existing explanations to the rise and fall of American voter trust in government during the past 60 years. It also matches the ebbs and flows of congressional incumbency advantage and presidential approval. The results suggest that voter satisfaction partly depends upon how incumbents use the fiscal policy tools at their disposal. Greater fiscal discipline might help alleviate voter dissatisfaction with politicians.