Is anti-incumbency really passé?
Counter-examples showing non-performers' victory and performers' defeat can hardly invalidate the anti-incumbency hypothesis.
The key feature of anti-incumbency is that it strikes at the state level. Counter-examples showing non-performers' victory and performers' defeat can hardly invalidate the anti-incumbency hypothesis.
Despite nearly two weeks worth of 24x7 media dissection, two key events related to the election have gone unnoticed. One of these events is a case of a dog that did not bark but for a reason, just as in the famous Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, and the other of a dog that did bark but no one noticed.
Despite nearly two weeks worth of 24x7 media dissection, two key events related to the election have gone unnoticed. One of these events is a case of a dog that did not bark but for a reason, just as in the famous Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, and the other of a dog that did bark but no one noticed.
Consider first the dog that barked but went unnoticed: anti-incumbency. Because the election returned the Congress-led incumbent ruling coalition to power with near-majority votes, virtually all commentators have automatically assumed that anti-incumbency is now dead. But this reflects either a poor understanding of the anti-incumbency thesis or superficial reading of the results.