In federal countries, competence for policy matters is often shared between various levels of government. As only overall outcomes are observed, this might blur accountability by decreasing voters' ability to infer information about the performance of their leaders. In this article, we analyse...

Politicians within any given party generally exhibit a degree similarity in terms of (political) viewpoints. Moreover, they are often constrained to follow general party lines on certain policy issues. Finally, they may be more likely to mimic one another than politicians from another party....

Previous studies indicate that higher tax burdens reduce incumbents’ popularity and re-election odds. The present paper offers a new test of this relation for German data. Our findings indicate that taxation indeed negatively affects German federal government approval ratings, in line with...

In federal countries, voters’ ability to evaluate the performance of their leaders might be reduced when different levels of government shape policy outcomes. This can blur political accountability. In this article, we analyze how party cues (i.e., politicians’ party membership acting as a...

In federal countries, competence for policy matters is often shared between various levels of government. As only overall outcomes are observed, this might blur accountability by decreasing voters' ability to infer information about the performance of their leaders. In this article, we analyse...

Previous studies indicate that higher tax burdens reduce incumbents’ popularity and re-election odds. The present paper offers a new test of this relation for German data. Our findings indicate that taxation indeed negatively affects German federal government approval ratings, in line with...

Previous research has established that taxation may entail significant electoral costs to politicians. This literature, however, focuses exclusively on the effect of the tax burden. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that both the level of the tax burden and the change in the tax structure...

Politicians within any given party generally exhibit a degree similarity in terms of (political) viewpoints. Moreover, they are often constrained to follow general party lines on certain policy issues. Finally, they may be more likely to mimic one another than politicians from another party....

Politicians within any given party generally exhibit a degree similarity in terms of (political) viewpoints. Moreover, they are often constrained to follow general party lines on certain policy issues. Finally, they may be more likely to mimic one another than politicians from another party....