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Electoral Competition, Political Promises and the “Responsible Party Government” Hypothesis

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Power and Responsibility

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Abstract

This essay reviews the literature on the two main issues that characterize the responsible party government hypothesis: whether political parties have clear and distinct positions, and whether they hold to their pledges once elected. It brings together and summarizes the knowledge that has been gained in political economy and related disciplines since the first developments. Based on a critical confrontation of theories with the empirical literature, this essay concludes that the Downsian conception of political markets—i.e., partial or complete convergence of platforms towards moderate policies—is not necessarily adequate to explain political outcomes. As a matter of fact, parties are in most cases shown to be responsible in the sense that they differentiate their policies and hold to their political promises once elected. Several other causes of the current political distrust and disaffection are being identified.

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  1. University of Rennes 1, CREM-CNRS, Condorcet Center, Rennes, France

    Benoît Le Maux

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  1. Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences, Pforzheim, Germany

    Martin A. Leroch

  2. Kutaisi International University, Kutaisi, Georgia

    Florian Rupp

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Le Maux, B. (2023). Electoral Competition, Political Promises and the “Responsible Party Government” Hypothesis. In: Leroch, M.A., Rupp, F. (eds) Power and Responsibility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23015-8_17

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