Promises vs. Policies: Understanding How Citizens Trade Off Principles and Instrumental Goals

Authors: Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik (University of Vienna), Theres Matthieß (University of Göttingen), Katrin Praprotnik (University of Graz), Juha Ylisalo (University of Turku) Most people want parties to keep their promises. At the same time, most citizens want parties in government to act in line with their (i.e. citizens’) preferences. What happens when these two demands are in conflict? How do citizens respond when parties’ election pledges contradict citizens’ own policy stances? We distinguish principled from instrumental attitudes: Individuals with principled attitudes will insist on promises being kept, even at the cost of policy outcomes they dislike. Others will reason more instrumentally and would therefore rather see politicians renege on their promises than disliked policies being implemented. We hypothesize that populist and extremist attitudes, institutional trust, as well as electoral availability will affect how citizens navigate the conflict between their own policy preferences and the principle of promise-keeping. We test these expectations on survey data from Finland and Germany. The findings help us understand how voters balance competing demands on governing parties.