Elections are often a choice of maintaining the status quo or voting for change – but does it matter whether the incumbent or insurgent wins?
Yes, concludes a fascinating new study of thousands of national elections since 1945. The researchers find in close elections that turnovers (when the incumbent leader or party loses) improve a country’s economic (GDP, inflation and unemployment) and wider performance (trade, peace and human development). The positive effects are bigger in presidential systems and poorer countries.
Electoral turnovers also lead to less corruption, which is always nice. I’m afraid the paper is silent on whether it leads to fewer parties in Downing Street or other seats of power.
Before Labour get all excited, it’s worth noting that the effect is not down to whether the winners were left- or rightwing. What’s going on is that newly elected leaders are more likely to get things done. They put more effort in because they’ve got more to prove reputationally.
Sounds to me like a pretty good argument for democracy, which at one level is basically defined as election-driven turnovers of leadership actually happening. The flipside to the positive benefits of electoral turnovers is that presumably the performance bar that insurgents are jumping over must be pretty low.
So, lots to chew on for political parties and voters in wannabe or established democracies around the world. The good news is that turnovers have become more common since the early 1990s, now making up 40% of results. The bad news is that that hasn’t been the case in Russia, where some turnover, electoral or otherwise, would have helped a long time ago.
• Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org
