The Relationship Between Personal and National Concerns in Public Perceptions About the Economy

Abstract

Although a large body of evidence has highlighted public perceptions of the national economy as a critical determinant of political evaluations, there is still considerable debate over how to interpret this relationship. Sociotropic voting is sometimes taken as evidence of civic-minded concern for collective conditions among the masses. Critics of this interpretation argue that self- interest operates indirectly through perceptions of national economic condi tions to influence political evaluations. We separate out the indirect self-interest explanation from the sociotropic voting model in order to evaluate this ex planation. We test the indirect self-interest hypothesis with both a cross-sec tional and longitudinal design using data from the 1990 and 1992 NES surveys. We find some support for the idea that personal experience influences judg ments of national economic conditions and, therefore, indirectly impacts political judgments. However, the evidence is weak overall. While personal and collective experience cannot be completely divorced, political judgments derive largely from collective-level considerations which are quite separate from personal economic experiences.