Policy, Ideology, and Party Distance: Analysis of Election Programmes in 19 Democracies Author(s): Ian Budge and Michael Laver

Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Nov., 1986), pp. 607-617 Published by: Comparative Legislative Research Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/439936 Accessed: 04/05/2009 15:24
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IAN BUDGE European University Institute, Florence and University of Essex, England MICHAEL LAVER University College, Galway

Policy, Ideology,and PartyDistance: Analysisof ElectionProgrammes In 19 Democracies

This research report describes activities of the Manifesto Research Group of the European Consortium for Political Research. Of several projects currently underway, the earliest and most developed has been an effort to collect and analyze election manifestoes of major political parties in 19 democratic nations. The immediate goal of analyses on these data is to represent the parties of each country in an issue space that leads to the identification of salient policy dimensions and is capable of mapping party "movements" on these dimensions through time (post-war period). Companion projects involving the analysis of coalition compacts and the content of major policy enactments are also described. Finally, the implications of these data sets for a variety of research issues in democratic politics are discussed.

Regardless of how we interpret the exact relationship between office-seeking on the one hand and ideology or policy position on the other (Budge and Laver, this issue), there is no doubt that the latter have played an increasingly important role in theories of government coalitions in recent years. In some variants, policy totally replaces office as the motivating factor in politicians' behavior (e.g., Budge and Herman, 1978). Even where office-seeking considerations lead to an emphasis on minimal-winning coalitions, the parties' ideological closeness or policy agreement is regarded as indispensible to the coalition's formation and stability (e.g., Axelrod, 1970; De Swaan, 1973; Grofman, forthcoming). Measuring Party Policy Distances: General Considerations Given the centrality of ideological or policy distances to practically all recent formulations of coalition theory, it is surprising that more sustained attempts have not been made to specify and measure the LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, XI, 4, November 1986 607

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Ian Budge and Michael Laver

concept. It has usually been introduced as a constraint or as a residual concept to tighten the fit between minimal-winning ideas and governmental realities (Budge, 1984). Thus it has rarely been taken seriously as a variable in its own right, and analysts have used admittedly static and imperfect representations of parties' policy positions and underlying ideology. The Manifesto Research Group of the European Consortium for Political Research' has studied empirically the policy distances between major national parties and how these distances have changed over time. The group's interests extend to broader questions of party competition and the relationship between election pledges and government action. All of these are questions about the functioning of democracies, particularly of democracies where such institutions as parties and elections have stabilized sufficiently to be compared over time.

Group Research on Party Election Programmes, 1979-1985 The Research Group is just finishing the first phase of collection and analysis of party programmes in 19 democracies.2 The comparative research described here measures policy positions directly at a number of time points from 1945 to 1983. These measurements are based on party manifestoes, platforms, or their equivalents issued at each election. These programmes do not provide unique measures of policy distance for each coalition government (typically two or three such programmes appear between elections), but they are certainly more specific and closer to the date of formation than any measures available up to now. For governments formed just after elections, of course, the platforms do constitute a measure of policy agreement or disagreement just before parties enter government negotiations. The countries selected for this research have maintained relafree and competitive elections, without interruption, over the posttively war period. From among all democracies meeting this criterion, the Research Group selected 19 for which country specialists were available. These include, inter alia, Denmark and Sweden (research on Norway will be published later), the two Irelands, the Benelux countries, the main continental systems (France of the Fourth and Fifth Republics, West Germany, Austria, and Italy), Israel, Sri Lanka, and Japan. Within these countries, all significant parties have been examined for which programmes are available. "Significant parties" have been broadly judged as such, on Sartori's (1976, pp. 121-123) criteria of coalition potential and blackmail potential. That is, these parties either

Policy, Ideology,and PartyDistance

609

directly affect the formation of governmentsor are too large to be

ignored.

The programmes,manifestoes, or equivalentdocuments were coded and the data analysed along the following lines. First, the ResearchGroupestablisheda set of 54 categoriesin seven broad policy domains (see the Appendix). These were based on previous research (Robertson, 1976, ch. 3; Budge and Farlie, 1977, ch. 11) and were developedthroughextensivetrialand discussionin the group. Next, sentences from the documents were counted into these categories; from these frequencies,percentageswere computedand comparedover time and betweenpartiesfor each countryindividually. For each country,the data werethen factor-analysed to identify leadingdimensions(usuallytwo) insideeachof the sevenpolicydomains. Exampleswould be "for firm government"or "labour groups versus middle-class groups." Second-stage factor analyses were then perdimensionsfor the counformed, designedto revealleadingunderlying try as a whole. Theseprovideda basis for tracingspecificpartypositions, and changesof position, at a generallevel. Although the procedure is straightforward, two decisions affectedthe results.First,the Research Groupdecidedto count sentences as they referredto an area of policy ratherthan to consider specific policy positions adopted within that area. This decision rests on a saliencytheoryof partycompetition(Robertson,1976, ch. 3; Budgeand Farlie, 1983,ch. 2), whichholds that programmes put emphasison those issueswherepartiesperceivean advantage.Thus a party'sissue selection is not dependentupon the positions selectedby other partiesand does not necessarilycontribute to political debate between parties in the system. This theoryis supportedby much evidenceand, in strictlypractical terms, it is the only approachthat allows us to code all sentencesin the documents.Those sentencesin the documentthat presentpositionsin oppositionto other partiesor, even more broadly,that speakdirectlyto competingpartiesor issue positions compriseon averageless than 10% of all sentencesin the programme. Second, the group decidedto use a two-stagefactor analysis. It is, of course,alwaysdifficultto choose betweendifferentfactor-analytic approaches.Our procedureof first seekingdimensionswithin domains seems best since, all thingsbeing equal, one has a betterchanceof findwithin a group of relatedtopics than over many ing coherentstructures unrelatedones. Thereis also the practicalconstraintthat manycountries have few elections and significant parties, renderingthe number of variablesgreaterthan the numberof cases and thus leadingto unstable solutionsif a two-stagestrategyis not adopted. (Of coursein the classic

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multiparty coalition systems such a difficulty does not arise.) Several alternative strategies have been explored by individual country investigators and give broadly similar results. The subsequent development of the research program into studies of relations between electoral programmes and government programmes, however, may lead to more radical alternative formulations (see below). A Specific Country Analysis: The Example of Italy We are able to flesh out the general description of the research strategy using selected results from a multiparty system-here, Italy, where the project was carried through by Alfio Mastropaolo and Martin Slater. At the time of analysis, sufficient programmes had been collected only for the Communists (PCI), Socialists (PSI), Liberals (PLI), Republicans (PRI), and Christian Democrats (DC). Thus, the results reported below hold only for these parties. Enough programmes of other parties -notably the Movimento Sociale Italiana (MSI), a populist party of the extreme right-have now been added to the data set to make a further analysis practicable. Table 1 presents profiles of the five parties in the original analysis, from which considerable differences of emphasis emerge. The Christian Democrat party is, in its origins, something of a populist party, and this fact explains why the major differences lie between Socialists and Communists on the one hand and the (small) Liberals and Republicans on the other. These are sufficient to produce a left-right dimension as the first factor from the analysis. But positions change, as illustrated by the chart of party movements on the dimension (Figure 1). By the 1980s, the Socialists appear to be more right wing than the Christian Democrats, a position which is not implausible in terms of recent developments. Positions in the more complex space formed by the first two dimensions are mapped in Figure 2. This approximates better the multidimensional space in which we need to chart policy distances, as it is improbable that political strategists base their reactions on only one type of issue. As five dimensions emerge from most country analyses, the "space" of decision may be even more complex, and there is no a priori indication where it lies. This makes our search for it experimental and tentative-a point we consider in the concluding section. Ongoing Developments of the Research Expanding on the research described above, the Research Group has three successor projects underway, each using characterizations of

Policy, Ideology, and Party Distance TABLE 1 Profile of Italian Parties

Mean Percentage of Sentencesb 6.86 5.76 4.18 4.13 3.90 3.76 3.32 2.98 2.40 5.11 4.64 3.90 3.38 3.20 2.84 2.28 2.24 1.91 1.79 5.28 5.26 4.52 4.15 3.59 3.56 3.50 3.42 3.41 3.26 4.59 4.26 4.18 4.16 3.64 2.44 2.28 2.24 2.16

611

Party Communist (n =9)

Codea 503 701 504 106 202 301 506 201 413

Issue Category Social Justice Labour Groups Social Services, Positive Peace and Disarmament Democracy Decentralization, Positive Education, Positive Freedom and Human Rights Nationalization Democracy Freedom and Human Rights Institutional Efficiency Judicial Reform Decentralization, Positive Economic Planning Agrarian Reform Social Justice Economic Goals Productivity Union Rights Social Justice Christian Values Social Services, Positive Economic Goals Decentralization Productivity Technology and Infrastructure Traditional Morality, Positive Democracy Labour Groups Education, Positive Social Justice Peace and Disarmament Social Services, Positive Productivity Economic Planning Democracy Administrative Reform

Standard Deviation 2.86 4.61 3.38 2.32 2.56 2.44 2.61 3.80 2.33 4.31 7.13 4.82 5.33 4.90 3.31 3.05 1.01 4.28 2.45 11.89 6.09 6.22 2.55 3.88 2.36 4.71 3.74 3.01 2.62 2.95 2.27 3.07 4.79 3.21 3.21 3.37 2.90 2.96

Republican (n = 5)

202 201 303 303.02 301 404 503.01 503 408 410

Christian Democrat (n = 9)

201.01 503 603.01 504 408 301 410 411 603 202

Socialist (n= 9)

701 506 503 106 504 410 404 202 303.01

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Ian Budge and Michael Laver TABLE 1 (continued)

Mean Percentage of Sentencesb 8.00 4.38 3.45 3.00 3.00 2.50 2.44 1.78 1.78 1.59 4.19 3.30 3.27 2.97 2.97 2.64 2.64 2.62 2.17 1.93

Party Liberal (n= 8)

Codea 401 201 202 414 403 108 503.04 503 701 704

Issue Category Enterprise Freedom and Human Rights Democracy Economic Orthodoxy Regulation of Capitalism European Community, Positive Home Ownership Social Justice Labour Groups Other Economic Groups Social Justice Democracy Labour Groups Freedom and Human Rights Social Services, Positive Peace and Disarmament Decentralization, Positive Education, Positive Productivity Enterprise

Standard Deviation 3.52 4.26 3.33 3.92 4.70 2.25 5.78 1.36 2.54 2.95 3.78 2.93 3.42 4.47 2.89 6.12 2.64 2.59 3.10 3.38

All (n=40)

503 202 701 201 504 106 301 506 410 401

aSee list of categories, by broad issue domain, in Appendix. bThe percentage of sentences which refer to each issue, averaged from party programmes in the postwar period. CThenumber of programmes available for the party in the postwar period.

parties drawn from the election programmes to explain some external phenomenon. In the first project, we intend to examine party movement and elector movement. Survey data for eight countries (not yet finally decided but certainly including the United Kingdom, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden) are being collected to measure changes of preference within each of six policy dimensions produced by a comparative reanalysis of the programme data. This project has obvious implications for spatial theories of electoral competition and hence for party input into governments, whether in terms of policies or seats. A second project will consider governmental outputs and election pledges. For single-party governments, the leading research question is whether,

Policy, Ideology, and Party Distance FIGURE 1 Movement of Italian Parties on the Left-Right Dimension, By Election Year
+ * O .... - . -..Christian Democrats Communists Socialists Liberals +

613

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1968 -

Left 1963--

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Right

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.

t
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1953 -

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19481946-

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614

Ian Budge and Michael Laver FIGURE 2 Plot of Italian Parties on the Two Leading Dimensions Of the Second-Stage Factor Analysis

Democrats '........ 'Christian . ... *Communists .

0
A 0

-? --

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Socialists Liberals Republicans

Technocracy

0/ / 0/ .6 -'---Rig I
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Left

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Social Harmony

Policy, Ideology, and Party Distance

615

under exceptionally favorable conditions, election pledges are translated into government action. A third project will use party positions, as measured through election programmes, to characterize subsequent governmental coalitions and the government programmes they adopt, an aspect relatively neglected up to now. As its leading hypothesis, this project will expect a coalition to form from the cluster of parties closest to each other, and to take as its programme some compromise point between the parties' positions, either in euclidian or "city block" space or some other kind of representation. Policy compromises may or may not be affected by parallel trade-offs, such as government portfolios (Laver, 1985), but they should be located at some point that is logically related to the starting positions, if policy is to be considered at all relevant to coalition bargaining. The key question, of course, is what policy positions are relevant. Only positions on simplified leading dimensions? Or positions on all policies emphasized in the manifesto, whether or not at the time of negotiations? Or certain recurrent ideological concerns, as characterizations up to now have assumed? These are not questions to be settled a priori, and much experimentation with different kinds of spaces will be necessary before the best representation can be identified. These may of course differ among different types of party systems, different political periods, or different countries. On the other hand, it may be outputs rather than government programs that matter, although it would certainly be odd if there were no relationship between the two. Available evidence for single-party governments indicates a strong relation between programmatic undertakings and actual government action (Rallings, 1986). This may be anticipated also for coalitions, throwing the emphasis back on published government policy as the crucial intervening variable. These extensions to our research on party programmes may clarify many aspects of the behavior of parties in government, particularly in relation to formal coalition theory. Our hope is that not only our explicit findings but also our data will help to redefine central assumptions and basic measurements employed in coalition studies and that they will remedy the relative neglect of the crucial variable of policy. Ian Budge is Professor of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester C04 3SQ, United Kingdom. Michael Laver is Professor of Political Science, University College, Galway, Ireland.

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Ian Budge and Michael Laver

APPENDIX Category Headings and Domains Used in the Comparative Coding Of Party Election Programmes in 19 Democracies
Domain 1: ExternalRelations 101 ForeignSpecialRelationships: Positive 102 ForeignSpecialRelationships: Negative 103 Decolonization 104 Military:Positive 105 Military:Negative 106 Peace and Disarmament 107 Internationalism: Positive 108 EuropeanCommunity: Positive 109 Internationalism: Negative 110 Internationalism: NegativeEEC & Europe Domain2: Freedomand Democracy 201 Freedomand DomesticHuman Rights 202 Democracy 203 Constitutionalism: Positive 204 Constitutionalism: Negative Domain3: Government 301 Decentralization: Positive 302 Decentralization: Negative 303 Government Efficiency 304 Government Corruption 305 Government Effectiveness and Authority Domain4: Economy 401 Enterprise 402 Incentives 403 Regulation of Capitalism 404 EconomicPlanning 405 Corporatism 406 Protectionism: Positive 407 Protectionism: Negative 408 EconomicGoals 409 Keynesian DemandManagement 410 Productivity 411 Technologyand Infrastructure 412 ControlledEconomy 413 Nationalization 414 EconomicOrthodoxyand Efficiency Domain5: Welfareand Qualityof Life 501 Environmental Protection 502 Art, Sport, Leisure,and Media 503 Social Justice 504 Social ServicesExpansion:Positive 505 Social ServicesExpansion:Negative 506 Education:Proexpansion 507 Education:Antiexpansion Domain6: Fabricof Society 601 Defenseof NationalWay of Life: Positive 602 Defense of NationalWay of Life: Negative 603 Traditional Morality:Positive 604 Traditional Morality:Negative 605 Law and Order 606 NationalEffort and Social Harmony 607 Communalism, Pluralism, Pillarization: Positive 608 Communalism, Pluralism, Pillarization: Negative Domain7: Social Groups 701 LabourGroups:Positive 702 LabourGroups:Negative 703 Agriculture and Farmers 704 OtherEconomicGroups 705 Underprivileged MinorityGroups 706 NoneconomicDemographic

Policy, Ideology, and Party Distance

617

NOTES
1. Members of the Manifesto Research Group are Judith Bara, Ian Budge, European University Institute; Karl Dittrich, University of Limburg; Derek Hearl, University of Essex; Margareta Holmstedt; Franz Horner, University of Salzburg; Takashi Inoguchi, Institute of Oriental Culture; Bill Irvine, Queens University; Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Free University, Berlin; Michael Laver, University College, Galway; Alfio Mastropaolo, Universita di Torino; Peter Mair, University of Manchester; Francois Petry, University of Manitoba; Colin Railings, Plymouth Polytechnic; David Robertson, University of Oxford; Tove Lise Schou, University of Copenhagen; Martin Slater, University of Essex; Kaare Strom, University of Minnesota. Support has been generously forthcoming from the Nuffield Foundation, Tercentenary Fund of the Bank of Sweden, British Social Science Research Council, European University Institute, Stiftung Wolkswagen, Nuffield, SSRC, EUI Party Government programme, Volkswagen Stiftung. 2. The results of this research are forthcoming in two separate publications. Saur-Verlag will issue a microfiche containing the texts of virtually all the documents examined, the data set, and supporting materials. Cambridge University Press is publishing Ideology, Strategy, and Party Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Party Programmes in 19 Democracies. We have included in the present article one of the standard country analyses from that volume.

REFERENCES
Axelrod, Robert. 1970. Conflict of Interest. Chicago: Markham. Budge, Ian. 1984. Parties and Democratic Government: A Framework for Comparative Explanation. West European Politics, 7:95-118. Budge, Ian, David Robertson, and Derek J. Hearl, eds. 1986. Ideology, Strategy and Party Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Election Programme in 19 Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Budge, Ian, and Dennis Farlie. 1977. Voting and Party Competition. London and New York: Wiley. Budge, Ian, and Valentine Herman. 1978. Coalition and Government Formation: An Empirically Relevant Theory. British Journal of Political Science, 8:454-477. De Swaan, Abram. 1973. Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formations. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Grofman, Bernard. Forthcoming. Party Distances and Coalition Governments: Testing a New Model. In Norman Schofield and Michael Laver, eds., Coalition Theory and West European Governments. Chapter 2. Railings, Colin. 1986. Election Pledges and Policy Outputs: Britain and Canada. In Ian Budge, David Robertson, and Derek Hearl, eds., Ideology, Strategy, and Party Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Election Programmes in 19 Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robertson, David. 1976. A Theory of Party Competition. London and New York: Wiley. Sartori, Giovanni. 1976. A Study of Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.