Comparer les agendas gouvernementaux : les « discours du Trône » aux Pays-Bas, au Royaume-Uni, au Danemark et en Espagne

Abstract

Résumé L’article étudie l’effet des changements de gouvernements sur l’évolution des agendas gouvernementaux à partir des « discours du Trône » au Royaume-Uni, en Espagne, au Pays-Bas et au Danemark. Au-delà de la théorie du mandat, les explications en terme d’héritage politique et d’intrusion des enjeux sont également testées. Malgré leurs indéniables différences, les pays quatre pays étudiés présentent des dynamiques d’agendas exécutifs très similaires, peu affectées par les alternances. En outre, sur la longue durée, l’enjeu économique, longtemps dominant, décline, de manière presque simultanée dans les quatre pays, au profit de l’intrusion de nouveaux enjeux.

The Agenda of British Government: The Speech from the Throne, 1911-2008

“…Budge and Hofferbert, 1992; Budge et al , 2001; Klingemann et al , 1994; McDonald and Budge, 2005). Recent studies, however, consider dynamics of political attention in Britain (Jennings and John, 2009; John and Jennings, 2010) while others undertake comparative analysis of executive agendas, focusing on issue stability (Breeman et al , 2009a; 2009b), opinion responsiveness (Hobolt and Klemmensen, 2005) and issue diversity (Jennings et al , 2009). The agenda of executive government matters both because incumbents tend to be the focus of the media and public agendas, and because the policy priorities of government are integral to political competition outside election campaigns.…”

“…In countries such as Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the US this summarises issues or policies that are of interest to government, including legislative proposals and executive priorities (e.g. Breeman et al , 2009a; 2009b; Cohen, 1995; 1997; Hobolt and Klemmensen, 2005; 2008; Jennings and John, 2009; Jennings et al , 2009). 1 Since 1901, the Speech from the Throne has been a permanent fixture of the political calendar in Westminster, occurring at the start of the parliamentary session.…”

“…The speech has been used in analysis as a measure of policy making (Bara, 2005; Hobolt and Klemmensen, 2005; 2008; Jennings and John, 2009; John and Jennings, 2010) and historical political-cultural dynamics (Namenwirth and Weber, 1987), as well as in comparison with similar annual executive speeches delivered by the head of state or head of government in a number of different countries across Western Europe and in the US (Breeman et al , 2009b; Jennings et al , 2009). This statement of the government's agenda is part of the agenda-setting process in British politics.…”

Keeping party programmes on track: the transmission of the policy agendas of executive speeches to legislative outputs in the United Kingdom

“…These speeches are forward-looking, communicating general priorities as well as specific measures that the executive intends to address in the following year (e.g. Cohen 1995;Hobolt and Klemmensen 2005;Breeman et al 2009;Green-Pedersen et al 2009;Jennings and John 2009;Jennings et al n.d.). Such speeches articulate the government agenda, prioritise some issues ahead of others and are intended to lead to a corresponding set of policy outputs.…”