Do Elections (Still) Matter?: Mandates, Institutions, and Policies in Western Europe

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Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic mandates through the lens of agenda-setting in five West European countries since the 1980s. The authors develop and test a new model bridging studies of party competition, pledge fulfillment, and policymaking. The core argument is that electoral priorities are a major factor shaping policy agendas, but mandates should not be mistaken as partisan. Parties are like 'snakes in tunnels': they have distinctive priorities, but they need to respond to emerging problems and their competitors' priorities, resulting in considerable cross-partisan overlap. The 'tunnel of attention' remains constraining in the policymaking arena, especially when opposition parties have resources to press governing parties to act on the campaign priorities. This key aspect of mandate responsiveness has been neglected so far, because in traditional models of mandate representation, party platforms are conceived as a set of distinctive priorities, whose agenda-setting impact ultimately depends on the institutional capacity of the parties in office. Rather differently, this book suggests that counter-majoritarian institutions and windows for opposition parties generate key incentives to stick to the mandate. It shows that these findings hold across five very different democracies: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. The results contribute to a renewal of mandate theories of representation and lead to question the idea underlying much of the comparative politics literature that majoritarian systems are more responsive than consensual ones. Cover Do Elections (Still) Matter? Copyright Foreword Contents List of Figures List of Tables Introduction: towards a new approach of the elections-to-policy nexus 1 From elections to policy 2 From theory to reality 3 Towards an agenda-setting theory of democraticmandates 4 Outline 1 Are mandates obsolete? 1.1 The end of party government? 1.2 `Not a dime's worth of difference'? 1.3 Policymaking beyond elections? 1.4 Towards a new perspective on mandateresponsiveness 2 Snakes in a tunnel? Parties, mandates, and agendas 2.1 Issue competition and systemic boundaries:snakes in a tunnel 2.2 Mandates and agenda-setting 2.3 Conclusion: agenda-setting from electoralcampaigns to policymaking 3 Cases and methods 3.1 Five Western European countries 3.2 Institutional setup and politicalcontext in the five countries 3.3 Data and empirical strategy 3.4 Conclusion 4 If not party mandates, then what? The determinants of legislative agendas 4.1 Policy change beyond party mandate 4.2 Evaluating non-partisan explanations of policy change 4.3 Conclusions 5 Issue competition in five countries: snakes in a tunnel 5.1 Snakes and tunnels: an approach to parties'electoral priorities 5.2 Issue competition within a tunnel 5.3 Overlap, issue competition, and the policy relevanceof campaigns 5.4 Conclusion 6 Mandate matters: evaluating the effects of electoral mandates in Western Europe 6.1 Empirical strategy 6.2 From party mandates to legislative priorities 6.3 The electoral origin of high-profile reformsacross political systems 6.4 Conclusion 7 Capacity, incentives, and mandate responsiveness 7.1 Capacity and the agenda-setting impact of platforms 7.2 Incentives and the agenda-setting impact of platforms 7.3 Conclusion 8 Conclusions 8.1 Snakes in a tunnel: a story on capacity and incentives 8.2 Snakes, tunnels, and representation 8.3 Perspectives for future research References Index