Economy and Elections in Central and Eastern Europe
Economy and Elections in Central and Eastern Europe

Summary/Abstract: The book reviewed here analyzes elections held in five countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Russia and Slovakia) in the years 1990–1999 in order to show which of two hypotheses is supported by empirical data. One hypothesis suggests that it is the deterioration or improvement of the economic situation which hurts or favours incumbent parties or the opposition, respectively. Another proposes that due to the special nature of politics in Central-Eastern Europe, it is an individual party’s or candidate’s ties to the new or the former regime that are more important to voters than the issue of incumbency or opposition. Beyond specific conclusions, the author, an associate professor of politics at New York University, demonstrates why the discipline we call “politology” is known as political science in English, and how its practitioners differ from the “politologists” we see daily on TV proffering the agenda of one party or the other and participating in the process of drafting party or government programmes. Joshua Tucker: Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, 1990–1999. (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

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