Toward a conditional model of partisanship in policymaking

Abstract

Do parties matter for policies? Despite the vast number of contributions to this old question, empirical findings remain highly contrasted and fail to demonstrate a substantial partisan influence. Nevertheless, this article argues that we should not conclude that parties are irrelevant for understanding policies. After an overview of the available empirical findings, it emphasizes that studies of legislative and governmental politics provide solid reasons for expecting a partisan influence and that we could make sense of the contradictory results by exploring the conditions under which parties matter. The final section identifies potential institutional, political, contextual and issue-specific determinants of partisanship in policymaking.

Do Party Manifestos Matter in Policy-Making? Capacities, Incentives and Outcomes of Electoral Programmes in France

“…Analyses of party manifestos and government spending priorities have found a strong relationship between the two (Budge and Hofferbert, 1990; Klingemann et al, 1994). This research strand has, however, been criticised for the limitations of its coding scheme, one more adapted for analysis of party positions rather than policy outputs (Guinaudeau, 2014: 268). Moreover, attention to an issue does not necessarily imply greater spending.…”