The Economic and Electoral Consequences of Austerity Policies in Britain

The aim of this paper is to examine the electoral impact of the economic strategy pursued by the Coalition government in Britain since it came to power in the May 2010, and to study the role of the economy in influencing voting support for political parties over time. Immediately after the general election there was a great deal of support for the proposed austerity programme, with widespread agreement among elites and public alike about what should be done. However, as analyses presented below show, public attitudes have subsequently evolved with increasingly sharp disagreements emerging over the Coalition's austerity policy. The paper investigates the relationship between inflation, unemployment and public attitudes to the economy and their links to voting support using aggregate time series methods and also multi-level modelling with British Election Study data. The evidence shows that there is a close relationship between the state of the economy and political support, and the implication is that the coalition parties are likely to lose the next election if the economy does not improve