Is party mandate conditional on political, economic and institutional determinants? Given the rapid economic and political changes in Europe over the last decades, it has become paramount to re-examine the partisan-government hypothesis. In this paper we develop a “conditional model of party mandate” attuned to partisan, economic and institutional correlates. Parties’ desire to keep their electoral promises must be balanced with a need to adapt their policy priorities to the economic and social reality. Favourable economic conjuncture and the institutional setup affect the autonomy of parties in government, influencing the distribution of power within the polity. And this, in turn, shapes the influence of parties on policy agendas.
By using data from the Comparative Agendas Project, we investigate how the legislative agenda, .i.e. adopted legislation, in Denmark, France, Spain and the UK respond to party manifestos and to economic and political context, between 1983 and 2008.
