Party policy responsiveness at the agenda-setting and decision-making stages: The mediating effect of the types of government and promise

Abstract

To what extent are political parties responsive to voters before and after elections (that is, in campaign and in office)? And what explains responsiveness at both these stages: the agenda-setting and the decision-making stages? We argue that parties are more responsive at the agenda-setting stage than at the decision-making, and that responsiveness tends to be mediated by the type of promise (change versus status quo, and issue salience), and of governments (majority versus minority, and left versus right-wing). This research focuses on the Portuguese case using data from party manifestos between 1995 and 2015, as well as surveys of Portuguese citizens. Findings generally support our expectations, although with some differences between parties as a whole and governments. Our results have important implications for the understanding of the opinion-policy linkage and mandate-responsiveness, as well as more broadly of party competition.