UNDER PRESSURE: DEMOCRATIC MANDATES AND POLICY OUTCOMES IN TURBULENT TIMES. EVIDENCE FROM GREECE

Abstract

To what extent do political parties under conditions of extraordinary pressure manage to fulfill the promises they made at elections? While systematic evidence from an international context points to parties under ‘stable’ times fulfilling high levels of election pledges (Thomson et el., 2017), research and knowledge in contexts of crisis is lacking. This study offers both the first empirical investigation of Southern European governing parties’ policymaking ability during the Great Recession, and the first examination of pledge fulfillment in Greece the past twenty years. In this project, I examine the strength of the program-to-policy linkage in Greece under the recent period of the 2008 economic crisis, with a parallel aim to assess the applicability of conclusions raised in Thomson et el. (2017) under conditions of pressure. Using PASOK’s (2009) and New Democracy’s (ND) (June 2012) election programs, I create a unique dataset consisting of 652 pledges and covering two consecutive electoral cycles. I then evaluate the fulfillment of 120 pledges made by PASOK and ND prior to the formation of the 2009-2012 and 2012-2015 governments accordingly. The findings indicate that PASOK fulfilled a substantially high level of its most important promises, while ND was unable to follow through on a vast majority of its pledges. Moreover, this study provides unique results for the impediments of maintaining the status quo under crises, and highlights the conclusive importance of institutional constraints on policymaking. Although explorative, this project covers an important gap in the literature, and offers insights on various tribulations of governance.