Capacity, incentives, and mandate responsiveness
The absence of significant agenda-setting effects of party platforms in the UK, as found in all other countries, seems counterintuitive: the comparative literature would predict the greatest impact in majoritarian systems, while counter-majoritarian institutions are meant to dilute governing parties’ policymaking powers. Comparing different political and institutional configurations in each country over time, we can confirm such a moderating impact of counter-majoritarian institutions and coalition constraints. We then show that party incentives may help to disentangle the British paradox. High incentives in electoral periods are associated with strong programme-to-policy linkages, in particular in the UK. We conclude that majoritarian systems provide governing parties with extended institutional powers to implement their mandate, although this may limit their incentives: opposition parties have less opportunity to pressurize them and scrutinize any drift away from mandate priorities. Consensual systems limit governing parties’ institutional power, but the ‘tunnel’ of attention may generate strong incentives to stick to campaign priorities.