Introduction

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys the cross-national research on government popularity, identifying a set of emerging economic and political factors that might be challenging the economy’s role as the chief driver of popular support for democratic governments. Among them the authors highlight economic issues that are newly salient, non-economic issues that compete for the public’s attention, partisan polarization, and populism. They then provide an initial comparison of the link between the economy and government popularity in twenty countries over thirty years. Echoing Paldam thirty years on, the authors show that the relationship varies considerably across countries. Yet they also document substantial variation in the economy–approval relationship within countries over time, which has received much less attention. In most countries considered here, the economy’s effect on approval has weakened over time. In some places, however, its effect has grown over time, while in yet other places the authors observe a declining role for the economy in the first decade of the century only to see a rebound after the Great Recession. This variation sets the stage for the chapters that follow.