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Growth, Centrism and Semi-Presidentialism: Forecasting the Portuguese General Elections

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Electoral behaviour in recently established democracies has been more frequently treated from the point of view of its unpredictability, volatility and personalistic elements than that of its "fundamentals". In this paper, we wish to contribute to redress this imbalance by advancing a forecasting model for general elections in a young democracy, Portugal. Building on the very familiar notion that the vote for the incumbent can be predicted on the basis of "economics" and "politics", we capture "economics" through a nonlinear specification of economic growth. Furthermore, we include two structural features of Portuguese politics, which have entailed a systematic electoral punishment for the centre-left Socialist Party as the incumbent and for all incumbents involved in political conflicts with the elected president in Portugal's semi-presidentialism.

Suggested Citation

  • Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Pedro C. Magalhães, 2008. "Growth, Centrism and Semi-Presidentialism: Forecasting the Portuguese General Elections," NIPE Working Papers 20/2008, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    • Handle: RePEc:nip:nipewp:20/2008
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    File URL: http://www3.eeg.uminho.pt/economia/nipe/docs/2008/NIPE_WP_20_2008.PDF
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    6. Whiteley, Paul, 1979. "Electoral Forecasting from Poll Data: The British Case," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 219-236, April.
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    1. Aichholzer, Julian & Willmann, Johanna, 2014. "Forecasting Austrian national elections: The Grand Coalition model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 55-64.

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    Keywords

    Forecasting; Portuguese general elections; Economics and elections; Semi-Presidentialism;
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