Election Promises, Party Behaviour and Voter Perceptions
An exploration of whether politicians are perceived to keep their
election promises. While scholars claim that parties act on most of
their election promises, citizens hold the opposite view. This
'Pledge Puzzle' guides Naurin in her analysis of the often
referred to but not empirically investigated, 'conventional
wisdom' about election promises.
'This book is a real joy to read, ably tackling a major paradox in Western Democracies. Why is it when parties so often seem to fulfil their written election promises in government, that most electors think they break them? The answer as Naurin convincingly reveals, is that the political class has a different view from electors of what fulfilling election pledges means - and even what the pledges are. Something obviously needs to be done about this serious misunderstanding and this book suggests what. A must buy for supporters and analysts of democracy alike.' - Ian Budge, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex, UK
Elin Naurin
Inhaltsangabe
PART I: INTRODUCTION The Pledge Puzzle Election Promises in Representative Democratic Theory PART II: EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF PARTIES' FULFILMENT OF ELECTION PROMISES Definitions of Election Promises in Empirical Research Do Parties Fulfil their Election Promises? PART III: CITIZENS' VIEWS ON ELECTION PROMISES How Widespread is the Image of the Promise-breaking Politician? Just General Distrust? Citizens' Definitions of Fulfilled Election Promises PART IV: CONCLUSIONS Promising Democracy
