IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v51y2007i1p151-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Principle vs. Pragmatism: Policy Shifts and Political Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Margit Tavits

Abstract

This article investigates the electoral effect of party policy shifts. I argue that whether party policy shifts are damaging or rewarding depends on whether the shift occurs in the pragmatic or principled issue domain. On pragmatic issues, voters value “getting things done.” Policy shifts in this domain signal responsiveness to the changing environment and are likely to be rewarded. Principled issues, however, concern core beliefs and values. Any policy shift in this domain is a sign of inconsistency and lack of credibility, which is likely to lead to voter withdrawal. These arguments are supported by evidence from 23 advanced democracies over a period of 40 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Margit Tavits, 2007. "Principle vs. Pragmatism: Policy Shifts and Political Competition," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 151-165, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:51:y:2007:i:1:p:151-165
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00243.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00243.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00243.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enelow,James M. & Hinich,Melvin J., 1984. "The Spatial Theory of Voting," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521275156, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gaetan Fournier & Alberto Grillo & Yevgeny Tsodikovich, 2023. "Strategic flip-flopping in political competition," Papers 2305.02834, arXiv.org.
    2. Selim Jürgen Ergun, 2015. "Centrist’S Curse? An Electoral Competition Model With Credibility Constraints," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(05), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Carina Bischoff, 2013. "Electorally unstable by supply or demand?—an examination of the causes of electoral volatility in advanced industrial democracies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 537-561, September.
    4. Hans Gersbach & Philippe Muller & Oriol Tejada, 2017. "A Dynamic Model of Electoral Competition with Costly Policy Changes," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 17/270, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    5. Christopher Williams & Jae-Jae Spoon, 2015. "Differentiated party response: The effect of Euroskeptic public opinion on party positions," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 176-193, June.
    6. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    7. Giorgio Bellettini & Paolo Roberti, 2020. "Politicians’ coherence and government debt," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 73-91, January.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "A Reform Dilemma in polarized democracies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 148-158.
    9. Vera Kunczer & Thomas Lindner & Jonas Puck, 2019. "Benefitting from immigration: The value of immigrants’ country knowledge for firm internationalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 2(4), pages 356-375, December.
    10. Michallet, Benjamin & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Facchini, François, 2015. "Greening Up or Not? The Determinants Political Parties’ Environmental Concern: An Empirical Analysis Based on European Data (1970-2008)," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 202113, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    11. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.
    12. Nunnari, Salvatore & Zápal, Jan, 2017. "Dynamic Elections and Ideological Polarization," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(4), pages 505-534, October.
    13. Yongwook Paik & Sukhun Kang & Robert Seamans, 2019. "Entrepreneurship, innovation, and political competition: How the public sector helps the sharing economy create value," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 503-532, April.
    14. Sandra Destradi, 2015. "Reluctant Powers: A Concept-Building Approach and an Application to the Case of Germany," RSCAS Working Papers 2015/46, European University Institute.
    15. Benjamin Michallet & Giuseppe Gaeta & François Facchini, 2015. "Greening up or not? The determinants of political parties' environmental concern: an empirical analysis based on European data (1970-2008)," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01154006, HAL.
    16. Christopher J. Williams & John Ishiyama, 2022. "How voter distributions, issue ownership, and position influence party emphasis," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1084-1100, September.
    17. Krause, Werner, 2020. "Appearing moderate or radical? Radical left party success and the two-dimensional political space," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(7), pages 1365-1387.
    18. Steve Wood, 2013. "Energy security and liberal democracy: ideals, imperatives and balancing acts," Chapters, in: Hugh Dyer & Maria Julia Trombetta (ed.), International Handbook of Energy Security, chapter 2, pages 19-39, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Alexandre Arnout, 2024. "Flip-flopping and Endogenous Turnout," AMSE Working Papers 2423, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    20. Ingo Rohlfing & Tobias Schafföner, 2019. "The time-varying relationship between economic globalization and the ideological center of gravity of party systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-26, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luigi Curini & Paolo Martelli, 2009. "Electoral Systems and Government Stability: A Simulation of 2006 Italian Policy Space," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 3(3), pages 305-322, October.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iepsg269m is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Jonathan Pool, 1992. "The Multilingual Election Problem," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 4(1), pages 31-52, January.
    4. Daniela Giannetti & Itai Sened, 2004. "Party Competition and Coalition Formation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(4), pages 483-515, October.
    5. Witterblad, Mikael, 2008. "Essays on Redistribution and Local Public Expenditures," Umeå Economic Studies 731, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    6. Torsten J. Selck, 2005. "Improving the Explanatory Power of Bargaining Models," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 371-375, July.
    7. Sadiraj, V. & Tuinstra, J. & Winden, F. van, 2005. "On the size of the winning set in the presence of interest groups," CeNDEF Working Papers 05-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    8. Eijffinger, Sylvester & Mahieu, Ronald & Raes, Louis, 2018. "Inferring hawks and doves from voting records," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 107-120.
    9. A. Kamakura, Wagner & Afonso Mazzon, Jose & De Bruyn, Arnaud, 2006. "Modeling voter choice to predict the final outcome of two-stage elections," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 689-706.
    10. Thomas Bräuninger, 2007. "Stability in Spatial Voting Games with Restricted Preference Maximizing," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 173-191, April.
    11. Tanner, Thomas Cole, 1994. "The spatial theory of elections: an analysis of voters' predictive dimensions and recovery of the underlying issue space," ISU General Staff Papers 1994010108000018174, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. Stefano Camatarri & Francesco Zucchini, 2019. "Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 425-446, September.
    13. Michel Le Breton & John A. Weymark, 2002. "Social choice with analytic preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(3), pages 637-657.
    14. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    15. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2004. "La fragmentation politique, une revue de la littérature," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 193-223.
    16. Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2019. "Crisis bargaining in the European Union: Formal rules or market pressure?," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 109-133, March.
    17. Melvin J. Hinich & Michael C. Munger, 1992. "A Spatial Theory of Ideology," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 4(1), pages 5-30, January.
    18. Stratmann, Thomas, 1996. "How Reelection Constituencies Matter: Evidence from Political Action Committees' Contributions and Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 603-635, October.
    19. Tolotti, Marco & Yepez, Jorge, 2020. "Hotelling-Bertrand duopoly competition under firm-specific network effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 105-128.
    20. Thomas Schwartz, 2011. "One-dimensionality and stability in legislative voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 197-214, July.
    21. Witterblad, Mikael, 2008. "The Demand for Local Public Services in Sweden," Umeå Economic Studies 730, Umeå University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:51:y:2007:i:1:p:151-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.