Fiscal Policy and the Democratic Process in the European Union

Abstract

The construction of a monetary union with a single currency in Europe raises serious concerns for those who understand the democratic process as one in which social groups compete on different ideological programs. This is because it increasingly constrains national governments of different partisan hues to follow similar fiscal and monetary policies. Recent empirical studies indicate that these concerns might be somewhat misplaced since there is evidence that partisan convergence on macroeconomic policy predates these institutional developments. One problem with these studies, though, is that they fail to include the electoral system as a constraint on partisan behavior. Since electoral systems generate centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, we should expect to find strong evidence for partisan differences only where electoral rules encourage dispersion. We test this argument using data on fiscal policy from European Union countries between 1981 and 1992. We find that there is still no systematic evidence for partisan differences. Given this, it is hard to see how EMU can add to the democratic deficit in the European Union.

Weighting Parties and Coalitions: How Coalition Signals Influence Voting Behavior

“…This way coalition signals facilitate clarity of responsibility, accountability, and identifiability of future governments even in systems that do not per se employ majoritarian institutions. This useful function for promoting these essential aspects of democratic government has long been noted in the literature (Clark, Golder, and Golder 2012;Powell 2000;Strom 1990). …”

Selectorate Theory in Hybrid Regimes: Comparing Hong Kong and Singapore

“…Whilst this method is of course necessary for large-scale cross-national comparisons, it lacks precision and overlooks important dynamics not captured by the indicators, as reflected by the coding of the two cases discussed above. According to Clark et al (2012: 388), scholars from the original project have begun to measure S and W using expert surveys. This article contributes to this effort by providing initial estimates of the changes in the size of S and W over time in Hong Kong and Singapore.…”

“…Following this classification, given the long-standing dominance of the People’s Action Party (PAP) and its use of various means such as legal procedures to suppress oppositions, Singapore can be unambiguously regarded as a hegemonic authoritarianism regime (Clark et al 2012; Diamond 2002). Although Levitsky and Way (2002, 2010) argue that Singapore is an electoral authoritarian system due to insufficient contestation (not competitive authoritarianism; thus a non-democracy rather than a hybrid regime), Ortmann (2011) argues that Singapore is slowly transforming from a hegemonic party-state into a competitive authoritarian system.…”

Promised Fiscal Expansions and Politics: A European Union Assessment

“…In countries with supranational fiscal rules like those in the European Union (EU), the influence of ideological differences on fiscal performance may have declined over time as a result of strong external pressures (Potrafke 2017 ) and due to the absence of synchronized electoral calendars in different Eurozone countries (Sadeh 2006 ). Still we should expect strong partisan differences in countries where electoral rules encourage dispersion and fragmentation remains high (Clark et al 2002 ). To Heinemann ( 2006 ), the Stability and Growth Pact in European countries may have even encouraged unrealistic fiscal forecasting to gain acceptance from both national electorates and the European Commission.…”