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Toward a conditional model of partisanship in policymaking

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French Politics Aims and scope

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.

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Notes

  1. The motivation for studying the party-policy link and many of the references and ideas developed here stem from numerous discussions with Comparative Agendas Project colleagues, especially within the French team. I am particularly grateful to Sylvain Brouard, Caterina Froio, Emiliano Grossman, Simon Persico and Tinette Schnatterer for their input. I also would like to acknowledge the financial support of the French Research Agency (ANR) for the PARTIPOL project, devoted to the topic of partisanship in policymaking.

  2. Mair (2008, p. 219) goes even further in observing that there are hardly identifiable electoral constituencies anymore and that parties, when faced with less marked and cohesive electorates, could not mirror the collective preferences of their constituencies, even if they wished to do so.

  3. This line of argumentation is more fragile regarding MPs benefiting from a strong personal vote and who do not rely primarily on the partisan ‘brand’ for their election.

  4. Katz and Mair contend that the cartellization of party organizations goes along with the emergence of a new conception of democracy, in which incumbents are not accountable based on an assessment of their electoral promises and on their consistence with the ‘party brand’, but judged on their record, for instance on their performance in fostering economic growth and in reducing budget deficits.

  5. As accurately noted by Schmidt (1996, p. 169), policy inheritance is not exogenously given but reflects decisions by past governments that may, at least partly, be determined by their party composition.

  6. Party influence may then be facilitated when interest groups’ demands are in line with party policies, for instance when trade unions support a left party in government (Alvarez et al, 1991).

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  1. Pacte – Sciences Po Grenoble, BP 48, 38040 Grenoble cedex 9, Bordeaux, France

    Isabelle Guinaudeau

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Guinaudeau, I. Toward a conditional model of partisanship in policymaking. Fr Polit 12, 265–281 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2014.16

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