Institutions, Economic Performance and Political Support: New Evidence from Belgium, 1984-2007 * Benny Geys a and Jan Vermeir b a Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), "Market Processes and Governance" Research Unit, Reichpietschufer 50, D-10785 Berlin, Germany; e-mail:
[email protected] b Department of Economics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussel, Belgium; e-mail:
[email protected] * Correspondence to Benny Geys: e-mail:
[email protected]; Tel: +49 (0)30 254 91 415; Fax: +49 (0)30 254 91 400. Jan Vermeir thanks FWO-Vlaanderen for financial support and the Department of Economics of Aarhus University for its hospitality during part of this research. Benny Geys is equally grateful for the hospitality of the economics department at NTNU (Trondheim, Norway). We thank IPSOS Belgium and La Libre Belgique for making available their data and Kris Deschouwer, Mikael Elinder, Bruno Heyndels, Marc Jegers, Wim Moesen, Zuzana Murdoch, Martin Paldam, Friedrich Schneider and participants at the 61st IIPF meeting (Maastricht) for helpful comments, discussions and suggestions. 1 Institutions, Economic Performance and Political Support: New Evidence from Belgium, 1984-2007 Abstract The relation between economic outcomes and incumbent popularity has been argued to require an institutional environment allowing voters to effectively assign responsibility. The present paper reassesses this claim using opinion poll data on Belgian federal government popularity (1984-2007). Belgium lends itself perfectly for this purpose due to the country’s unique institutional context: linguistic division of its party system, divergent political environment across Flanders and Wallonia and its continually developing federal structure. The analysis illustrates that economic outcomes affect federal government popularity in Belgium, although, due to the complex institutional environment, the relation is feeble.