Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1628616
M. Lewandowsky
ABSTRACT This article considers the interplay between the democratic attitudes of candidates and their nomination through political parties. The focus is on candidates who articulate a dissatisfied attitude towards the current status of democracy, and the research interest lies on the parties that might nominate such candidates in national elections. In doing so, the article establishes a link between work on the democratic beliefs of candidates as a specific part of the political elite and literature on party behaviour. The study is grounded in both classical attempts and recent work on political elites and candidate nomination, and its theoretical framework is based on the assumption that parties principally select supportive candidates. Two major mechanisms are investigated: on the one hand, nomination as an expression of policy congruence between the party and its candidates, on the other, candidate nomination as a way to maintain loyalty with the party’s strategic behaviour in parliament. In a first empirical attempt to this research interest, the study analyses data from 76 parties in 11 European countries.
{"title":"Policy congruence and strategic loyalty: which parties nominate candidates dissatisfied with democracy? Evidence from 11 European countries","authors":"M. Lewandowsky","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1628616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1628616","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article considers the interplay between the democratic attitudes of candidates and their nomination through political parties. The focus is on candidates who articulate a dissatisfied attitude towards the current status of democracy, and the research interest lies on the parties that might nominate such candidates in national elections. In doing so, the article establishes a link between work on the democratic beliefs of candidates as a specific part of the political elite and literature on party behaviour. The study is grounded in both classical attempts and recent work on political elites and candidate nomination, and its theoretical framework is based on the assumption that parties principally select supportive candidates. Two major mechanisms are investigated: on the one hand, nomination as an expression of policy congruence between the party and its candidates, on the other, candidate nomination as a way to maintain loyalty with the party’s strategic behaviour in parliament. In a first empirical attempt to this research interest, the study analyses data from 76 parties in 11 European countries.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1628616","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49035439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1605834
Seraphine F. Maerz
ABSTRACT This article analyses the language authoritarian leaders use to legitimate their rule. It examines the official speeches of autocrats in hegemonic regimes and compares them to the rhetorical styles of leaders in closed or competitive regimes and democracies. While recent autocracy research has drawn most attention to the phenomenon of competitive authoritarianism, the survival strategies of hegemonic regimes are less explored. Thus, the study focuses on the simulation of pluralism as a key feature of hegemonic regimes. By installing non-competitive multiparty systems which merely pretend pluralism, these regimes maintain a strong grip on power. The study finds that the leaders of hegemonic regimes use a surprisingly democratic style of language to sustain this façade of pluralism. The dictionary-based quantitative text analysis of 2074 speeches of current leaders in 22 countries illustrates that compared to other autocracies, hegemonic regimes overemphasize the (non-existing) democratic procedures in their country to fake a participatory form of government and gain national and international legitimacy. The subsequent case studies of Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia further reveal the differences in context and motives for autocrats in hegemonic, closed, and competitive regimes to use autocratic or democratic styles of language.
{"title":"Simulating pluralism: the language of democracy in hegemonic authoritarianism","authors":"Seraphine F. Maerz","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1605834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1605834","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyses the language authoritarian leaders use to legitimate their rule. It examines the official speeches of autocrats in hegemonic regimes and compares them to the rhetorical styles of leaders in closed or competitive regimes and democracies. While recent autocracy research has drawn most attention to the phenomenon of competitive authoritarianism, the survival strategies of hegemonic regimes are less explored. Thus, the study focuses on the simulation of pluralism as a key feature of hegemonic regimes. By installing non-competitive multiparty systems which merely pretend pluralism, these regimes maintain a strong grip on power. The study finds that the leaders of hegemonic regimes use a surprisingly democratic style of language to sustain this façade of pluralism. The dictionary-based quantitative text analysis of 2074 speeches of current leaders in 22 countries illustrates that compared to other autocracies, hegemonic regimes overemphasize the (non-existing) democratic procedures in their country to fake a participatory form of government and gain national and international legitimacy. The subsequent case studies of Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia further reveal the differences in context and motives for autocrats in hegemonic, closed, and competitive regimes to use autocratic or democratic styles of language.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1605834","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49340691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1654838
Claudia Landwehr, A. Leininger
ABSTRACT This paper addresses instrumentalist attitudes to democracy – attitudes according to which democracy is not valued for itself, but accepted only as a means to specific policy goals. Pippa Norris has argued that in the process of democratic consolidation, such instrumentalist conceptions of democracy are replaced with proceduralist ones, leading to an enlightened understanding of democracy. We use the unique case of German reunification to show that this process takes at least a generation to complete. Based on data from a novel battery of items fielded via the German GESIS panel, we show an East–West divide in democratic instrumentalism, which, however, is smaller among younger generations. While our findings do confirm Norris’ thesis that growing democratic experience leads to a shift from instrumental to procedural understandings of democracy, we also show that instrumental democrats still make up a sizeable portion of the citizenry that might withdraw support if dissatisfied.
{"title":"Instrumental or procedural democrats? The evolution of procedural preferences after democratization","authors":"Claudia Landwehr, A. Leininger","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1654838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1654838","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper addresses instrumentalist attitudes to democracy – attitudes according to which democracy is not valued for itself, but accepted only as a means to specific policy goals. Pippa Norris has argued that in the process of democratic consolidation, such instrumentalist conceptions of democracy are replaced with proceduralist ones, leading to an enlightened understanding of democracy. We use the unique case of German reunification to show that this process takes at least a generation to complete. Based on data from a novel battery of items fielded via the German GESIS panel, we show an East–West divide in democratic instrumentalism, which, however, is smaller among younger generations. While our findings do confirm Norris’ thesis that growing democratic experience leads to a shift from instrumental to procedural understandings of democracy, we also show that instrumental democrats still make up a sizeable portion of the citizenry that might withdraw support if dissatisfied.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1654838","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48990905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1625712
Juraj Medzihorský
ABSTRACT The D'Hondt method is the most popular proportional apportionment procedure, as well as one of the oldest. Despite this, the method is not fully understood, with serious normative and empirical implications for democratic representation. This paper provides insights into the D'Hondt method through a generalization that is based on a finite mixture model, extends to situations with missing data (e.g. imperfect records), and applies to allocation problems outside of elections. The generalization disproves several widely accepted beliefs, clarifying that the method maximizes the fraction of exactly proportionally represented votes, and providing intuitive measures of overall and party-level disproportionality. The crucial insights of this interpretation are easily communicated in natural language without any mathematical formalisms, which makes it particularly useful for lay audiences and civic education. I illustrate these features with the 1999–2014 British European Parliament elections.
{"title":"Rethinking the D'Hondt method","authors":"Juraj Medzihorský","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1625712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1625712","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The D'Hondt method is the most popular proportional apportionment procedure, as well as one of the oldest. Despite this, the method is not fully understood, with serious normative and empirical implications for democratic representation. This paper provides insights into the D'Hondt method through a generalization that is based on a finite mixture model, extends to situations with missing data (e.g. imperfect records), and applies to allocation problems outside of elections. The generalization disproves several widely accepted beliefs, clarifying that the method maximizes the fraction of exactly proportionally represented votes, and providing intuitive measures of overall and party-level disproportionality. The crucial insights of this interpretation are easily communicated in natural language without any mathematical formalisms, which makes it particularly useful for lay audiences and civic education. I illustrate these features with the 1999–2014 British European Parliament elections.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 15"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1625712","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45505296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1668724
Matthew S. Adams
ABSTRACT Civic virtue is a core concept in the republican tradition. Its associations with duty and sacrifice indicate that it is temperamentally incompatible with anarchism, an ideology typically defined by its commitment to maximizing freedom. Presenting an original reading of the work of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, two seminal figures in the history of anarchist ideas, this article argues that, nevertheless, a conception of civic virtue was central to their political theory. Tracing their engagement with the language of Enlightenment civic virtue, filtered through the experience of the French Revolution and the politics of Jacobinism, it argues that Bakunin and Kropotkin looked to anarchist civic virtues to both conceptualize anarchist revolution and underpin future anarchist social relations. Casting fresh light on anarchism’s intellectual origins, its neglected relations with republicanism, and the complexities of republican visions of civic virtue, this article also recovers duty, and a potentially demanding model of participation, as key values in anarchist political thought.
{"title":"Utopian civic virtue: Bakunin, Kropotkin, and anarchism’s republican inheritance","authors":"Matthew S. Adams","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1668724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1668724","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Civic virtue is a core concept in the republican tradition. Its associations with duty and sacrifice indicate that it is temperamentally incompatible with anarchism, an ideology typically defined by its commitment to maximizing freedom. Presenting an original reading of the work of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, two seminal figures in the history of anarchist ideas, this article argues that, nevertheless, a conception of civic virtue was central to their political theory. Tracing their engagement with the language of Enlightenment civic virtue, filtered through the experience of the French Revolution and the politics of Jacobinism, it argues that Bakunin and Kropotkin looked to anarchist civic virtues to both conceptualize anarchist revolution and underpin future anarchist social relations. Casting fresh light on anarchism’s intellectual origins, its neglected relations with republicanism, and the complexities of republican visions of civic virtue, this article also recovers duty, and a potentially demanding model of participation, as key values in anarchist political thought.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1668724","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44413259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2019.1630590
Alexandra Segerberg, S. Guerra
{"title":"Editorial","authors":"Alexandra Segerberg, S. Guerra","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2019.1630590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2019.1630590","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2019.1630590","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46169962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1643681
O. Daddow, C. Gifford, B. Wellings
ABSTRACT Drawing on newly released archival material, this article reassesses Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech, widely depicted to have instigated Britain's drift towards Brexit. It opens by giving an essential recap of the main contents of the speech. Next, the article explains why and how we use the address as a prism through which to see Thatcher's European policy-making in action. The third section tells how the speech was written to show how intra-government fault lines began to surface in its earliest incarnations. We then process trace to the two main battles publicly rehearsed at Bruges: over the Conservative Party's approach to European integration (fourth section); and, reinforcing this, over the desirability of an Anglo-American reading of British history in which ‘Europe’ occupied a subordinate place (fifth section). Our central claim is that the study of political speeches, including the speechwriting process, can be a compelling addition to our accounts of the ways in which politicians frame policy dilemmas, debate them behind the scenes and manage their political communication to achieved desired policy objectives, in this case opening up Britain's place in ‘Europe’ for domestic discussion. We therefore contribute to three overlapping domains of inquiry: Thatcher's foreign and European policy decision-making; the Conservative Party and European integration leading to Brexit; and finally, speeches as tools for policy-making and agenda setting.
{"title":"The battle of Bruges: Margaret Thatcher, the foreign office and the unravelling of British European policy","authors":"O. Daddow, C. Gifford, B. Wellings","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1643681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1643681","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on newly released archival material, this article reassesses Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech, widely depicted to have instigated Britain's drift towards Brexit. It opens by giving an essential recap of the main contents of the speech. Next, the article explains why and how we use the address as a prism through which to see Thatcher's European policy-making in action. The third section tells how the speech was written to show how intra-government fault lines began to surface in its earliest incarnations. We then process trace to the two main battles publicly rehearsed at Bruges: over the Conservative Party's approach to European integration (fourth section); and, reinforcing this, over the desirability of an Anglo-American reading of British history in which ‘Europe’ occupied a subordinate place (fifth section). Our central claim is that the study of political speeches, including the speechwriting process, can be a compelling addition to our accounts of the ways in which politicians frame policy dilemmas, debate them behind the scenes and manage their political communication to achieved desired policy objectives, in this case opening up Britain's place in ‘Europe’ for domestic discussion. We therefore contribute to three overlapping domains of inquiry: Thatcher's foreign and European policy decision-making; the Conservative Party and European integration leading to Brexit; and finally, speeches as tools for policy-making and agenda setting.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1643681","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42737639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1702887
Kaisa Herne, Henrik Serup Christensen, Kimmo Grönlund
ABSTRACT Empirical studies show that people with high political knowledge tend to polarize more than others. Polarization refers to a process where one becomes more extreme in the direction of her or his original views. While some evidence supports this view, there is also contrasting evidence, rendering ambiguous conclusions. Discussing in a deliberative setting might alleviate polarization among participants independent of whether they are knowledgeable. We examine the association between knowledge and opinion polarization in a deliberative mini-public setting, focusing on two reasons that may account for the diverging results. First, we distinguish between two types of knowledge: general political knowledge, which concerns knowledge on general political processes and structures, and issue knowledge, which concerns factual knowledge on the specific discussed topic. Second, we examine whether the deliberative context moderates the linkage between knowledge and polarization. We use evidence from two deliberative experiments to examine these linkages. The topic of the first is nuclear power and energy policies and the second concerns immigration. Our results show that general political knowledge and individual level polarization are associated. However, the specific nature of the association is context-dependent and differs between the two types of political knowledge.
{"title":"The influence of political knowledge on opinion polarization in citizen deliberation","authors":"Kaisa Herne, Henrik Serup Christensen, Kimmo Grönlund","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1702887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1702887","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Empirical studies show that people with high political knowledge tend to polarize more than others. Polarization refers to a process where one becomes more extreme in the direction of her or his original views. While some evidence supports this view, there is also contrasting evidence, rendering ambiguous conclusions. Discussing in a deliberative setting might alleviate polarization among participants independent of whether they are knowledgeable. We examine the association between knowledge and opinion polarization in a deliberative mini-public setting, focusing on two reasons that may account for the diverging results. First, we distinguish between two types of knowledge: general political knowledge, which concerns knowledge on general political processes and structures, and issue knowledge, which concerns factual knowledge on the specific discussed topic. Second, we examine whether the deliberative context moderates the linkage between knowledge and polarization. We use evidence from two deliberative experiments to examine these linkages. The topic of the first is nuclear power and energy policies and the second concerns immigration. Our results show that general political knowledge and individual level polarization are associated. However, the specific nature of the association is context-dependent and differs between the two types of political knowledge.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1702887","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47311131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1617639
L. Ahrens
ABSTRACT Prior research shows that fairness judgements regarding the income distribution have a substantive impact on redistribution preferences. Those who perceive incomes as unfair demand more redistribution. However, the association is undertheorized in previous studies. This article adds to the literature by offering a comprehensive theoretical explanation of why incomes are perceived as unfair and how this influences the demand for redistribution. Based on equity theory from social psychology, it is argued that individuals develop a preference for redistribution if they consider their own income and incomes in general to be disproportional to relevant exchanged inputs. They assess proportionality by using social comparisons with observable reference groups such as colleagues, family members or other labour market participants. Multilevel models with survey data from 39 diverse countries support this theory. Individuals who perceive their own income as disproportional in comparison to their efforts and those who perceive incomes in general as disproportional demand more redistribution. These findings have several implications for research on political economy and social policy. Most importantly, they explain the inconclusive results of empirical tests of rational choice theories such as the median-voter hypothesis.
{"title":"Theorizing the impact of fairness perceptions on the demand for redistribution","authors":"L. Ahrens","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1617639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1617639","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Prior research shows that fairness judgements regarding the income distribution have a substantive impact on redistribution preferences. Those who perceive incomes as unfair demand more redistribution. However, the association is undertheorized in previous studies. This article adds to the literature by offering a comprehensive theoretical explanation of why incomes are perceived as unfair and how this influences the demand for redistribution. Based on equity theory from social psychology, it is argued that individuals develop a preference for redistribution if they consider their own income and incomes in general to be disproportional to relevant exchanged inputs. They assess proportionality by using social comparisons with observable reference groups such as colleagues, family members or other labour market participants. Multilevel models with survey data from 39 diverse countries support this theory. Individuals who perceive their own income as disproportional in comparison to their efforts and those who perceive incomes in general as disproportional demand more redistribution. These findings have several implications for research on political economy and social policy. Most importantly, they explain the inconclusive results of empirical tests of rational choice theories such as the median-voter hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1617639","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45610303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-17DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1632674
Abel Bojar
ABSTRACT The determinants of public spending composition have been studied from three broad perspectives in the scholarly literature: functional economic pressures, institutional constraints and party-political determinants. This article engages with the third perspective by placing intra-governmental dynamics in the centre of the analysis. Building on the portfolio allocation approach in the coalition formation literature and the common pool perspective in public budgeting, I theorize that spending ministers with party-political backing from the prime minister or the finance minister are in a privileged position to obtain extra funding for their policy jurisdictions compared to their colleagues without such support or without any partisan affiliation (non-partisan ministers). Via a system of equations on six spending categories using seemingly unrelated regressions as well as Prais–Winsten panel regressions on a sample of 32 parliamentary democracies over two decades, I offer mixed evidence for the impact of party-political alignment. While the relative share of four of the six budget categories systematically increases under the party-political alignment of the prime minister, the impact of finance minister alignment is only significant for the economic budget.
{"title":"With a little help from my friends: ministerial alignment and public spending composition in parliamentary democracies","authors":"Abel Bojar","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1632674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1632674","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The determinants of public spending composition have been studied from three broad perspectives in the scholarly literature: functional economic pressures, institutional constraints and party-political determinants. This article engages with the third perspective by placing intra-governmental dynamics in the centre of the analysis. Building on the portfolio allocation approach in the coalition formation literature and the common pool perspective in public budgeting, I theorize that spending ministers with party-political backing from the prime minister or the finance minister are in a privileged position to obtain extra funding for their policy jurisdictions compared to their colleagues without such support or without any partisan affiliation (non-partisan ministers). Via a system of equations on six spending categories using seemingly unrelated regressions as well as Prais–Winsten panel regressions on a sample of 32 parliamentary democracies over two decades, I offer mixed evidence for the impact of party-political alignment. While the relative share of four of the six budget categories systematically increases under the party-political alignment of the prime minister, the impact of finance minister alignment is only significant for the economic budget.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 21"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2018-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1632674","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41671953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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