Incumbent Parties Essay

Incumbent parties are defined as “the current holders of political power” and it is clear that well established and organized incumbent parties in presidential and parliamentary democracies have constantly sustained economic growth and development. It is from this trend that we can assume that incumbent parties are indeed dependent on national economic performance. However, it is still important to political researchers, and electoral campaigners to investigate if national economic performance really is the most important cause for voter’s support towards incumbent parties and has ultimately led to the development of new theories in political science towards voting behavior and political economy. In this essay, The Punishment Sanction model (Powell 2000; Powell and Whitten, 1993) supported by the electoral outcomes in Greece after the 2008 Financial Crisis (Goulas and Kallandrants, 2015) will be discussed in support of the statement that voters support for incumbent parties does depend on national economic performance. On the other hand, it can be argued that to state that the success of incumbent parties is solely dependent on national economic performance is reductionist. To demonstrate the over-simplicity of this statement, this essay will explain another factor that voters support for incumbent parties depend on. This is social identity, a variable that is held in high regards for voter’s support towards incumbent parties, according to Antunes (2010).
However, they are challenged by the opposition parties’ activities (works) that can influence voters. In some cases, the opposition political parties criticize the incumbent government policies and generate alternative presumably better polices for the electorate to consider and vote such parties to