Although the politics of law and order have been a major issue of debate among criminologists during recent years, comparative public policy research has largely neglected this policy field. This paper fills this gap by bringing together criminological as well as public policy theories and examining the determinants of law-and-order policies in 15 European countries with a special focus on the impact of parties. We show that partisan politics influence how much countries spend on law and order policies but that the effect depends on the budgetary room for manoeuvre as well as on the strength of constitutional courts.
