Under what circumstances (governmental) political parties keep their promises: Overview of the state of art Cover Image

Za jakých okolností plní (vládní) politické strany své sliby: Přehled stavu poznání
Under what circumstances (governmental) political parties keep their promises: Overview of the state of art

Author(s): Jaroslav Bílek
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Governance, Government/Political systems
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Fakulta sociálních věd
Keywords: pledge fulfilment; mandate theory; representative democracy; political parties; coalition governments

Summary/Abstract: Political parties seeking reelection should try to fulfill their election pledges. A number of studies trying to confirm this assumption were written in the last three decades. Existing studies have also identified a number of factors that increase or decrease the probability of pledge fulfillment. The goal of this review is to apprise the reader with the most important findings of these research attempts. To achieve this, the author have analyzed 44 studies focused on the topic of pledge fulfillment. The results clearly show that a political pledge has a better chance of fulfillment if it doesn‘t seek to change the status quo, its passing is agreed upon in the government coalition, and its fulfillment is not obstructed by the economical situation. The analyzed studies, however, also show that controlling the specific portfolio and issue saliency do not, contrary to the prevailing theoretical assumptions, increase the chance of fulfilling political pledges.

  • Issue Year: 13/2021
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 39-48
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Czech
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