In the wake of the financial crisis, budgetary discipline has taken centre stage in politics. More than ever a country's budget mirrors the true policy preferences of the legislative majority beyond all political discourse and cheap talk. The paper sheds light on mandate fulfilment in the field of public spending and fiscal policy in general. Based on previous work on pledge fulfilment (Schwarz et al. 2010, Louwerse 2011, and Fivaz et al. 2013) the paper compares publicised pre-electoral statements of MPs on public spending and the development of the public finances with their post-electoral legislative behaviour during budget debates and votes. We will analyse two parliamentary terms (2007-2011 and 2011-2014) in Switzerland, using data from the Voting Advice Application (VAA) smartvote and parliamentary votes.
