Popularidade e economia no semipresidencialismo português

Abstract

This article analyses the application of the punishment-reward function to the popularity of the president and prime-minister in Portugal, in the winter of 2006. The theory of the economic voting holds that the institutional context of citizenship may make it difficult to assign responsibility for the government’s economic performance. Contrary to what earlier works have suggested, this study shows that Portuguese semipresidentialism does not seem to place barriers in the way of the Portuguese punishing the government (and not the president) for adverse economic circumstances.