The DOI matches its Crossref record; 139 of the 147 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Retrospective Voting Reconsidered
Abstract
We review advances in the study of retrospective voting, or how citizens evaluate and act on their perceptions of government performance. As a whole, the recent literature provides a more complete and nuanced picture of the retrospective voter as sometimes, but not always, effectively incentivizing elected officials to enhance public welfare. Leveraging examples of retrospective voting in areas other than the economy, the field is heading toward a middle ground in which voters resemble decision makers in many other domains. In many cases, a coherent logic governs voters' choices. In other instances, voters make mistakes, often in predictable ways subject to well-known psychological biases. Understanding the circumstances under which retrospective voting achieves effective democratic accountability and when it fails to do so is an important task for subsequent research. We discuss two additional issues for future exploration: a better understanding of normative benchmarks, and increased attention to the relationship between retrospective voting behavior and policy outcomes.
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“These perceptual biases seem most pronounced when the actual state of the economy is ambiguous (Healy & Malhotra 2013).”
From The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States (2019) · cites this paper as Healy & Malhotra 2013
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Metadata
- Authors
- Healy, A., & Malhotra, N.
- Affiliations
- Loyola Marymount University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- ORCID
- Malhotra, Neil
- Venue
- Annual Review of Political Science
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2013-05-11
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 285-306
- ISSN
- 1094-2939 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-1577
- OpenAlex
- W2170291011
- Cited by
- 667
- References
- 147
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 75 · 2024: 75 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 58 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 75 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 54.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Political Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Game Theory and Voting Systems
- Keywords
- retrospective voting, government performance perceptions, democratic accountability, voting behavior, psychological biases, normative benchmarks, policy outcomes, economic voting, political decision-making
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