Measuring How Political Parties Keep Their Promises: A Positive Perspective from Political Science

Pétry, François; Collette, Benoît

doi:10.1007/978-0-387-89672-4_5

Cited by 45 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Political scientists investigating the reliability of political promises empirically have found rates of promise keeping in representative democracies above 50%, but clearly below 100% (Recent contributions include Artés, ; Kostadinova, ; Mansergh & Thomson, ; Naurin, ; Pétry & Collette, ; Royed, ; Schermann & Ennser‐Jedenastik, ) . This suggests that neither the pessimistic nor the optimistic view of election promises is completely right, and the truth falls in between both assumptions.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

Born

Eck

Johannesson

2017

Political Psychology

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We analyze the effect of election promises on electoral behavior in a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, politicians can make nonbinding election promises about how to split an endowment between themselves and the group. We find that promises affect both voting and voter beliefs about how much the politician will contribute to the public fund. The relationship is inverted U‐shaped with decreasing credibility of higher promises. Contributions of politicians are correlated with their promises in a similar pattern. The election promises are generally credible unless particularly high. Politicians keep promises more often if a reelection is possible and if the politician came into power by vote rather than by random draw. Voters reward high contributions in the previous period and punish promise breaking even after controlling for the contribution in the previous period or voters' beliefs about future contributions. By controlling for voters' beliefs, we distinguish retrospective from prospective voting. Our results suggest that voters both use promises for prospective voting and retrospectively punish broken promises.

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Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

Born

Eck

Johannesson

2017

Political Psychology

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“…In addition, the increased centralization of planning in the Prime Minister's Office has extended to the provision of policy direction to the Cabinet and the senior levels of the civil service (Savoie 2009), thereby making the dedication to election commitments as a manifestation of overall competence all the more important. Despite these facts, the fulfilment of election campaign promises remains a relatively under-explored area of study (Petry and Collette 2009). In an overtly political and partisan environment where the traditional policy capacity of the public service has shifted, parties appear to have stepped into the policy formulation vacuum.…”

Section: Policy Capacity and Parties As Policy-making Bodiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking policy capacity in Canada: The role of parties and election platforms in government policy-making

Flynn¹

2011

Canadian Public Administration

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There is an ongoing debate in western industrialized democracies about the genesis of government policy capacity. This article examines this under-explored issue by looking at the election campaign commitments made by political parties. The author reviews the election policy manifestos of the parties that governed in Canada from 1984 to 2008, some of the proposed policy changes advanced during election campaigns, and the actions taken by governing parties to fulfil those commitments. This research demonstrates that parties were relatively unconstrained in advancing detailed election platforms to the electorate and that they were able to fulfil, or partially fulfil, those commitments at fairly significant levels -particularly incumbent governments, who could draw on their governing experience and the policy advice given by the public service. The author contends that governing parties in Canada possess a high degree of policy-making capacity and that they have the ability both to advance and implement fairly detailed plans for governing. These findings confirm that political parties are an important source of policy-making capacity and that such capacity is enhanced by public-service input.Sommaire : Il existe un débat constant dans les démocraties des pays occidentaux industrialisés au sujet de la genèse de la capacité d'élaboration des politiques gouvernementales. Le présent article étudie ce problème peu exploré en examinant les engagements pris par les partis politiques lors des campagnes électorales. L'auteur passe en revue les manifestes des programmes politiques électoraux des partis ayant gouverné le Canada de 1984 à 2008, ainsi que certains des changements de politiques proposés qui ont été promus pendant les campagnes électorales, et les mesures prises par les partis au pouvoir pour remplir ces engagements. Cette recherche démontre que les partis étaient relativement libres de promouvoir auprès des électeurs des plateformes électorales détaillées et qu'ils ont été en mesure de remplir ces engagements, pleinement ou partiellement, à des niveaux relativement élevés -en particulier les gouvernements en fonction qui pourraient tirer parti de leur expérience du pouvoir et des conseils politiques que leur donne la fonction publique. L'auteur

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“…The fulfillment of elections pledges has attracted far more attention by scholars and, by and large, parties appear not to take their electoral pledges very lightly. Overall, the evidence suggests that politicians do act as if their words have consequences (Pétry & Collette ; Schwarz et al )…”

Section: Delegation and Coalition Agreementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6 The fulfillment of elections pledges has attracted far more attention by scholars and, by and large, parties appear not to take their electoral pledges very lightly. Overall, the evidence suggests that politicians do act as if their words have consequences (Pétry & Collette 2009;Schwarz et al 2007) Writing a coalition agreement involves two related decisions: whether or not to write an agreement; and how extensive the agreement should be (conditional upon writing one). The decisions are influenced by two factors.…”

Section: Delegation and Coalition Agreementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making words count: Coalition agreements and cabinet management

Indriðason

Kristinsson

2013

European J Political Res

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The cabinet is a central actor in policy making in parliamentary systems. Yet, relatively little is known about how coalition cabinets operate. The delegation of decision‐making authority to ministers invites policy drift, which threatens the cohesiveness of the cabinet's policy programme. Cabinets employ a variety of methods to contain policy drift. The writing of coalition agreements is among the major tools, but there are others, including limiting ministerial autonomy and the use of junior ministers to shadow ministers. The present study demonstrates that coalition agreements are written to contain policy drift and that it is directly related to the degree of hierarchy in the cabinet. It studies the factors that affect the likelihood of a coalition agreement being written and how extensive they are, if written. Among these are the ideological diversity found in the cabinet, the use of alternative methods for controlling ministers and the complexity of the bargaining situation.

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Measuring How Political Parties Keep Their Promises: A Positive Perspective from Political Science

Cited by 45 publications

References 19 publications

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

Rethinking policy capacity in Canada: The role of parties and election platforms in government policy-making

Making words count: Coalition agreements and cabinet management

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