Abstract

The global financial crisis and economic collapse in countries across the world presents new challenges for economic voting models. While there is a consensus that economic voting exists, even the most ardent supporters will agree that it is a variable force and can only explain a portion of voting behaviour (Lewis-Beck 2007). However, when changes in economic circumstances are life altering, the impact is likely to be far greater. This paper explores the asymmetry effects of boom and bust economics on voting patterns at Irish national elections from 2002 – 2011, a period which contains three elections with the most recent in 2011 being the third most volatile in European post-war history (Mair 2012). Drawing on the Stegmaier and Lewis-Beck (2011) framework, the paper investigates asymmetric economic voting as a force at routine and crisis elections. Ireland presents a fascinating case study in the examination of economic voting in times of crisis. Indeed, the scale of the political change in Ireland since the economic crisis is at the extreme end of the spectrum of what has previously been captured as economic voting. We find that economic shocks matter a great deal, Irish voters like their counterparts elsewhere are economic voters and this was never as clear as when the economy collapsed in 2011.