Abstract What are the effects of weak economic performance in East and Southeast Asia? In particular, does weak performance lead to citizens’ dissatisfaction and, correspondingly, increase preference for stronger governments who may achieve economic targets more quickly? Recent elections in less-democratic nations and emergent democracies of East and Southeast Asia suggest growing support for political parties carries over from previous authorities. And, governments are harking back to policies of the past that emphasise economic performance over political development in order to motivate political support. However, few studies systematically assess how weak economic performance affects citizens’ political support. This paper addresses this neglect. Using public opinion surveys from the Asian Barometer, we track how economic performance affects political support over time in countries with a multiparty system. The results offer two useful insights. First, economic performance is robustly and positively related to government approval. Thus, strong economic performance corresponds with strong support for government while weak performance yields weak support. Importantly, this finding is consistent with the large amount of literature on economic voting. Second, economic performance is not consistently related to democratic support; instead, political influence plays an intervening role in how economic performance affects democratic support. This underlines the significance of institution-building for political stability and political development in the region. Equally important, the results tie to the literature on political institutionalisation and democratic support. In conjunction, the results embrace East and Southeast Asia into the broader disciplinary research of motivation theory-building and empirical studies.

中文翻译：

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政治还是经济？东亚和东南亚的经济表现和政治支持薄弱

摘要东亚和东南亚经济表现不佳会产生什么影响？特别是，业绩不佳是否会导致公民不满，并相应地增加对可能更快实现经济目标的强大政府的偏好？最近在民主程度较低的国家和东亚和东南亚新兴民主国家的选举表明，对政党的支持越来越多，由前任当局继承。而且，政府正在回溯过去的政策，这些政策强调经济表现胜于政治发展，以激发政治支持。但是，很少有研究系统地评估疲软的经济表现如何影响公民的政治支持。本文解决了这种疏忽。利用《亚洲晴雨表》的民意调查，我们追踪在多党制国家中，经济表现如何随着时间的推移影响政治支持。结果提供了两个有用的见解。首先，经济绩效与政府批准有力且正相关。因此，强劲的经济表现与对政府的强大支持相对应，而疲软的表现则带来了较弱的支持。重要的是，这一发现与关于经济投票的大量文献是一致的。其次，经济绩效并非始终与民主支持相关。相反，政治影响在经济绩效如何影响民主支持方面起着中介作用。这突显了机构建设对于该地区政治稳定和政治发展的重要性。同样重要 结果与有关政治制度化和民主支持的文献联系在一起。同时，结果将东亚和东南亚纳入了动机理论构建和实证研究的更广泛的学科研究中。