Redistribution, tax policy and the vote: The 2012 French presidential election

As tax policy is one of the most prominent issues for France at a time of great economic crisis and public debt, this article analyses how redistribution has been viewed and considered by voters. Assuming three main hypotheses about attitudes towards redistribution (egotropic perspective, sociotropi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Parliamentary affairs 2013-01, Vol.66 (1), p.87-105
Main Authors: Guillaud, E., Sauger, N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Economic conditions
Economic Crises
Economic crisis
Elections
Empirical tests
Evaluation
Fiscal policy
France
Humanities and Social Sciences
Parliamentary government
Political aspects
Political economy
Political science
Politics and government
Presidential elections
Presidents
Public Debt
Public debts
Social status
Socioeconomic factors
Sociology
Surveys
Tax policy
Taxation
Voter behavior
Voters
Voting
Voting behaviour
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:As tax policy is one of the most prominent issues for France at a time of great economic crisis and public debt, this article analyses how redistribution has been viewed and considered by voters. Assuming three main hypotheses about attitudes towards redistribution (egotropic perspective, sociotropic perspective and voter incompetence), we propose a series of empirical tests of these various explanations from a cross-sectional survey fielded after the election. Despite a rather low salience of this issue during the campaign, we show that voters demonstrate quite coherent attitudes in this area. Preferences for redistribution are linked to individuals' socio-economic positions, to their beliefs about the effects of taxation, and lead to consistent vote decisions in 2012.
ISSN:0031-2290
1460-2482
0031-2290
DOI:10.1093/pa/gss069