Economic voting in the developing world

A plethora of ink has been spilled demonstrating the relationship between economics and voter behavior. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of scholarship has concentrated on the empirical assessment of economic voting within the context of developed countries. The present thesis widens the scope of study by testing the applicability of the classic economic voting theory (CEVT) strictly within developing countries. The results suggest that while voters in developing countries do take the economy into account, they do so in a manner that's partially different from what CEVT predicts. Voters in developing countries simultaneously assume both retrospective sociotropic and prospective sociotropic characteristics. Furthermore, economic voting in the developing world takes place within an asymmetrical framework of punishment and reward. The findings suggest that choice theory and its derivative CEVT are ill-equipped at explaining economic voting behavior in developing countries.