The Program-to-Policy Linkage: A Comparative Study of Election Pledges and Government Policies in The United States, The United Kingdom and The Netherlands

The program-to-policy linkage refers to the level of congruence between what political parties promise during election campaigns, as set out in their election programs, and the policies delivered by governments after elections. The program-to-policy linkage is an important element of modern democratic theory. Moreover, institutionalist theories predict variation in the strength of the linkage according to the extent to which parties hold control over the levers of power. For instance, there may be a stronger linkage for parties that go on to form single-party governments that control both the executive and legislative branches after the elections than for parties that must share power with others. In coalition governments, control over relevant ministerial portfolios is likely a key explanatory factor. Over time, economic conditions may also affect the types of policy commitments parties make and the ability of governing parties to deliver on those commitments. The analysis includes more than 5,000 election pledges made by parties in five countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden) over a thirty-year period, from the 1970s to early 2000s. The countries and time periods selected contain considerable variation in institutional conditions, including single-party governments (in the UK and Ireland), divided governments (in the US), coalition governments (Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden) and minority governments (Ireland and Sweden). The cases selected also contain variation in economic conditions. The paper also reports on ongoing collaborate research on the fulfillment of election pledges in eleven countries.