Do Parties keep their promises in times of crisis? The impact of macro-economic conditions on partisan policymaking in Italy (1996-2018)

Do parties keep their electoral promises when in government, and how does the economic context affect parties’ capacity to fulfil their pledges? This paper investigates the effect of macro-economic conditions on partisan policymaking through an analysis of electoral promises. The literature on pledges provides substantial evidence that the political and party system and the related distribution of power affect parties’ capacities and incentives to promote their policy preferences when in office (Moury, 2011; Naurin, 2011; Thomson et al., 2017). Even though some of these studies also take into consideration the economic context in which parties are embedded, the role played by macroeconomic conditions in the party-policy relation remains largely understudied. Are parties able to produce ideologically driven policies even during economic downturns? To what extent and how does the macroeconomic context affect the party-policy relation? Providing an answer to these questions is essential to better understand the functioning of contemporary democracies, especially in the aftermath of a severe economic crisis (2007-2008). In this paper I argue that the interaction between macroeconomic conditions and the policymaking process is more complex than it seems. On the one hand, conditions of economic crisis hinder partisan ability to shape policies by constrained government budgets, rising sovereign debt and economic slowdown. In addition, economic crisis also undermines parties’ institutional capacities: faced with reduced parliamentary support, it is harder for office-holders to gather the necessary support to pass their policy measures. On the other hand, however, constrained capacities are balanced by new possibilities and motivations that encourage governing parties to invest the limited resources in fulfilling their electoral promises. I test these assumptions looking at the fulfilment of 2,417 pledges made by nine Italian parties and/or coalitions in the five elections held between 1996 and 2018. The pledge fulfilment rate observed in the aftermath of the economic crisis shows that partisan actors do maintain a certain control over policy implementation, even during a major recession period. Moreover, results from a binary logistic regression suggest that Italian parties are more likely to adopt their economic, welfare and labour market policies in times of economic slowdown. When economic conditions deteriorate during their mandate, office-holders are more prone to direct their attention and concentrate the resources at their disposal to keeping the economic part of their electoral manifestos. The economic recession opens up new opportunities and gives parties new incentives, not least electoral ones, to carry out their policies.