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Mandates and Policy Outputs: U.S. Party Platforms and Federal Expenditures

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  • Budge, Ian
  • Hofferbert, Richard I.

Abstract

Political parties in the United States are usually regarded as too weak and decentralized, too much the prey of office-seeking politicians and special interests, to function effectively as programmatic., policy-effecting agents within the separation of powers. This has been taken as a serious flaw in the U.S. version of representative democracy, prompting cycles of proposed reform; criticisms of the existing set-up as a capitalistic sham; or alternative justifications of the system as pluralist rather than strictly party democracy. Our research challenges these assumptions by demonstrating the existence of strong links between postwar (1948–1985) election platforms and governmental outputs. Platforms' sentences, coded into one of 54 subject categories, are used as indicators of programmatic emphases and are related to corresponding federal expenditure shares. Resulting regression models demonstrate the full applicability of party mandate theory to the United States, and they operationalize its U.S. variants concretely.

Suggested Citation

  • Budge, Ian & Hofferbert, Richard I., 1990. "Mandates and Policy Outputs: U.S. Party Platforms and Federal Expenditures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 111-131, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:84:y:1990:i:01:p:111-131_19
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    1. Kempf, Elisabeth & Luo, Mancy & Schäfer, Larissa & Tsoutsoura, Margarita, 2023. "Political ideology and international capital allocation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 150-173.
    2. Jennifer C. Cole & Phillip J. Ehret & David K. Sherman & Leaf Boven, 2022. "Social norms explain prioritization of climate policy," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 1-21, July.
    3. Westermark, Andreas, 2004. "Extremism, campaigning and ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 421-452, May.
    4. Osterloh, Steffen, 2012. "Words speak louder than actions: The impact of politics on economic performance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 318-336.
    5. Anja Prummer, 2016. "Spatial Advertisement in Political Campaigns," Working Papers 805, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Andreas Schedler, 1998. "The Normative Force of Electoral Promises," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 191-214, April.
    7. Brian Burgoon, 2013. "Inequality and anti-globalization backlash by political parties," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 408-435, September.
    8. Koch Michael & Tkach Benjamin, 2012. "Deterring or Mobilizing? The Influence of Government Partisanship and Force on the Frequency, Lethality and Suicide Attacks of Terror Events," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-29, August.
    9. Paul Chaney, 2015. "“Post-Feminist†Era of Social Investment and Territorial Welfare? Exploring the Issue Salience and Policy Framing of Child Care in U.K. Elections 1983-2011," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(1), pages 21582440155, February.
    10. Jessica Hejny, 2018. "The Trump Administration and environmental policy: Reagan redux?," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 8(2), pages 197-211, June.
    11. Mark J Wattier & Raymond Tatalovich, 2000. "Issue Publics, Mass Publics, and Agenda Setting: Environmentalism and Economics in Presidential Elections," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 18(1), pages 115-126, February.

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