Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Public Choice
Published in: Public Choice 3-4/2019

28-01-2019

Intra-party politics and interest groups: missing links in explaining government effectiveness

Authors: Andrea Ceron, Luigi Curini, Fedra Negri

Published in: Public Choice | Issue 3-4/2019

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

The article sheds light on two missing links in the existing literature on government’s policy preferences and policy choices, namely the roles played by party factions and trade unions as political actors able to affect government’s decision-making power. The content analysis of a wide typology of documents (i.e., investiture speeches, parliamentary debates, motions discussed during parties’ and trade unions’ congresses) allows to locate cabinets, parties, party factions and trade unions on a common pro-state/pro-market scale. Using these new data sources, we perform a multivariate time-series analysis to estimate the relative impact of those political actors on social expenditure in Italy throughout its modern history (1946–2015). The results support the idea that intra-party dynamics and trade unions’ preferences do matter. Indeed, government’s ability to retrench the welfare state vanishes when the Prime Minister’s party is highly polarized internally and when trade unions are more cohesive.
previous article Sabotage in team contests
next article Elections, recession expectations and excessive debt: an unholy trinity

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Recent work has pointed out that electoral costs are not distributed equally among coalescing parties (Hjermitslev 2018). Thus, we can hypothesize that party leaders are not bounded by internal factionalism to the same extent: those with stronger valence qualities and/or electoral support are likely to be less constrained by factions (see also Ceron 2012). Unfortunately, we cannot test this conditional effect with the data at hands. That opens avenues for further developments.
 
2
In the Online Appendix, we also test whether trade unions’ policy positions affect a government’s ability to cut social expenditure. Table A9 adds a new variable, Trade Unions’ Position, which is equal to the mean of the CGIL’s and the CISL’s positions on the economic policy scale. The estimated coefficients on Trade Unions’ Position do not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. However, our two hypotheses are confirmed even when including the additional control.
 
3
To test the robustness of our findings with respect to the dominant role played by the Democrazia Cristiana—Christian Democracy (DC) during the First Italian Republic, we run our model specification for intra-party factionalism on two separate subsamples: the first one restricted to the budgetary laws adopted by DC PMs; the other restricted to the ones adopted by PMs who were leaders of other parties. The results hold the same in both the subsamples, thus confirming that they are not biased by the DC’s dominant role. The estimates are available upon request.
 
4
See the Online Appendix—Table A2 for the list of the categories included in the economic policy scale.
 
5
The convergent validity of the policy scores from our dataset on investiture speeches also appears to be satisfactory. Please see the Online Appendix—Sect. 3.2 for the complete validation exercise.
 
6
Figure A1 in the Online Appendix displays the positions of factions in the PM’s party over time. Point estimates demonstrate that left-wing factions adopt positions on the economic policy scale that are more pro-state (− 0.786; standard error 0.109) and statistically different from those supported by the other factions (− 0.305; standard error 0.060).
 
7
We replicate the analysis by imputing the IPD of the major party supporting those three independent PMs. The results hold. Estimates are available upon request.
 
8
We omitted the smaller Unione Italiana dei Lavoratori (Italian Union of Workers—UIL), founded in 1949 by republican and social democratic union members, which represents only approximately 10% of the unionized workforce, and lies (ideologically) between CGIL and CISL.
 
9
Figure A2 in the Online Appendix displays the evolution of CGIL’s and CISL’s positions over time. The estimates suggest that the CGIL is slightly to the left of the CISL, although the difference is not statistically significant.
 
10
To annualize the index of IGD, we follow the same procedure used for PMs’ speeches.
 
11
Additional models are proposed and discussed in the Online Appendix—Sect. 2. They test the robustness of our findings to different specifications of the dependent variable, add socioeconomic and institutional control variables and change the temporal lag between the day on which a government takes office and the budgetary choices for which that government can be considered to be responsible. All our findings hold.
 
12
We also assess whether high values of IPD prevent left-wing governments from increasing social expenditure (or reducing its retrenchment) by recoding governments’ positions so that higher numbers point to the pro-state pole of the economic scale. In line with H1, the results suggest that a PM willing to increase social expenditure is unable to do so when IPD reaches 0.1. Thus, no matter what the PM’s preferences may be, high levels of IPD generate a status-quo bias, as they imply more veto players. The estimates are available upon request.
 
13
We compared the explanatory power of our new measure of trade unions’ ideological cohesion (TUD) to the one of more conventional measures, such as trade union density (OECD) and number/hours of strikes (ISTAT). If TUD is substituted with trade union density, or number/hours of strikes, its effects are not statistically significant, meaning that those variables do not capture the same phenomenon (estimates available upon request). On the other hand, when the more conventional measures are added to our model specifications, TUD retains its sign and statistical significance. The estimates reported in the Online Appendix—Table A4.
 
Literature
Alesina, A., & Drazen, A. (1991). Why are stabilizations delayed. American Economic Review, 81(5), 1170–1188.
Allan, J. P., & Scruggs, L. (2004). Political partisanship and welfare state reform in advanced industrial societies. American Journal of Political Science, 48(3), 496–512.CrossRef
Allern, E. H., & Bale, T. (Eds.). (2017). Left-of-centre parties and trade unions in the twenty-first century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Armingeon, K., & Bonoli, G. (2006). The politics of post-industrial welfare states: Adapting post-war social policies to new social risks. London: Routledge.
Avdagic, S. (2010). When are concerted reforms feasible? Explaining the emergence of social pacts in Western Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 43(5), 628–657.CrossRef
Baccaro, L., & Lim, S. (2007). Social pacts as coalitions of the weak and moderate: Ireland, Italy and South Korea in comparative perspective. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 13(1), 27–46.CrossRef
Baccaro, L., & Simoni, M. (2008). Policy concertation in Europe: Understanding government choice. Comparative Political Studies, 41(10), 1323–1348.CrossRef
Bäck, H., & Debus, M. (2016). Political parties, parliaments and legislative speechmaking. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef
Bäck, H., Müller, W. C., & Nyblade, B. (2017). Multiparty government and economic policy-making. Coalition agreements, prime ministerial power and spending in Western European Cabinets. Public Choice, 170(1–2), 33–62.CrossRef
Balassone, F., & Giordano, R. (2001). Budget deficits and coalition governments. Public Choice, 106(3–4), 327–349.CrossRef
Benoit, K., & Herzog, A. (2017). Text analysis: Estimating policy preferences from written and spoken words. In J. Bachner, K. Wagner Hill, & B. Ginsberg (Eds.), Analytics, policy and governance (pp. 137–159). Yale: Yale University Press.
Bernauer, J., & Bräuninger, T. (2009). Intra-party preference heterogeneity and faction membership in the 15th German Bundestag: A computational text analysis of parliamentary speeches. German Politics, 18(3), 385–402.CrossRef
Bevan, S., & Greene, Z. (2015). Looking for the party? Partisan effects on issue attention in UK acts of parliament. European Political Science Review, 8(1), 49–72.CrossRef
Bjedov, T., Lapointe, S., & Madiès, T. (2014). The impact of within-party and between-party ideological dispersion on fiscal outcomes: Evidence from Swiss cantonal parliaments. Public Choice, 161(1–2), 209–232.CrossRef
Blais, A., Blake, D., & Dion, S. (1993). Do parties make a difference? Parties and the size of government in liberal democracies. American Journal of Political Science, 37(1), 40–62.CrossRef
Boucek, F. (2012). Factional politics. How dominant parties implode or stabilize. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Braüninger, T. (2005). A partisan model of government expenditure. Public Choice, 125(3), 409–429.CrossRef
Broadberry, S., Giordano, C., & Zollino, F. (2011). A sectoral analysis of Italy’s development: 1861–2010. In Presented at the conference ‘Italy and the world economy, 1861–2011’, Rome, Banca d’Italia, 12–15 October 2011, economic history working papers no. 20.
Budge, I., Klingemann, H., Volkens, A., Bara, J., & Tanenbaum, E. (2001). Mapping policy preferences, estimates for parties, governments and electors 1945–1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Castater, E. G., & Han, K. J. (2016). Deal or no deal: Why do social pact proposals fail? West European Politics, 39(6), 1251–1275.CrossRef
Ceron, A. (2012). Bounded oligarchy: How and when factions constrain leaders in party position-taking. Electoral Studies, 31(4), 689–701.CrossRef
Ceron, A. (2014). Gamson rule not for all. Patterns of portfolio allocation among Italian party factions. European Journal of Political Research, 53(1), 180–199.CrossRef
Ceron, A. (2019). Leaders, factions and the game of intra-party politics. London: Routledge.CrossRef
Ceron, A., & Negri, F. (2017). Trade unions and political parties in Italy (1946–2014): Ideological positions and critical junctures. South European Society and Politics, 22(4), 491–508.CrossRef
Ceron, A., & Negri, F. (2018). March divided, fight united? Trade union cohesion and government appeal for concertation. West European Politics, 41(1), 218–239.CrossRef
Clayton, R., & Pontusson, J. (1998). Welfare-state retrenchment revisited: Entitlement cuts, public sector restructuring, and inegalitarian trends in advanced capitalist societies. World Politics, 51(1), 67–98.CrossRef
Colombo, E., Tirelli, P., & Visser, J. (2014). Reinterpreting social pacts: Theory and evidence. Journal of Comparative Economics, 42(2), 358–374.CrossRef
Compston, H. W. (2003). Beyond corporatism: A configurational theory of policy concertation. European Journal of Political Research, 42(6), 787–809.CrossRef
Culpepper, P. D. (2002). Powering, puzzling, and “pacting”. Journal of European Public Policy, 9(5), 774–790.CrossRef
Culpepper, P. D., & Regan, A. (2014). Why don’t governments need trade unions anymore? The death of social pacts in Ireland and Italy. Socio-Economic Review, 12(4), 723–745.CrossRef
Cusack, T. R. (1997). Partisan politics and public finance: Changes in public spending in the industrialized democracies, 1955–1989. Public Choice, 91(3–4), 375–395.CrossRef
Dahl, C. H. (2014). Parties and institutions: Empirical evidence on veto players and the growth of government. Public Choice, 159(3–4), 415–433.
de Haan, J., Sturm, J. E., & Beekhuis, G. (1999). The weak government thesis: Some new evidence. Public Choice, 101(3–4), 163–176.CrossRef
Debus, M., & Bräuninger, T. (2009). Intra-party factions and coalition bargaining. In D. Giannetti & K. Benoit (Eds.), Intra-party politics and coalition government (pp. 121–145). New York: Routledge.
Dolezal, M., Ennser-Jedenastik, L., Müller, W. C., et al. (2012). The life cycle of party manifestos: The Austrian case. West European Politics, 35(4), 869–895.CrossRef
Döring, H., & Schwander, H. (2015). Revisiting the left cabinet share: How to measure the partisan profile of governments in welfare state research. Journal of European Social Policy, 25(2), 175–193.CrossRef
Elgie, R., & McMenamin, I. (2008). Political fragmentation, fiscal deficits and political institutionalisation. Public Choice, 136(3–4), 255–267.CrossRef
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giannetti, D., & Benoit, K. (2009). Intra-party politics and coalition government. New York: Routledge.
Giannetti, D., & Laver, M. (2009). Party cohesion, party discipline, party factions in Italy. In D. Giannetti & K. Benoit (Eds.), Intra-party politics and coalition government (pp. 146–168). New York: Routledge.
Greene, Z., & Haber, M. (2016). Leadership competition and disagreement at party national congresses. British Journal of Political Science, 46(3), 611–632.CrossRef
Hamann, K., Johnston, A., Katsanidou, A., Kelly, J., & Pollock, P. (2015). Sharing the rewards, dividing the costs? The electoral consequences of social pacts and legislative reform in Western Europe. West European Politics, 38(1), 206–227.CrossRef
Hamann, K., Johnston, A., & Kelly, J. (2013). Unions against governments: Explaining general strikes in Western Europe, 1980–2006. Comparative Political Studies, 46(9), 1030–1057.CrossRef
Hamann, K., & Kelly, J. (2007). Party politics and the reemergence of social pacts in Western Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 40(8), 971–994.CrossRef
Hassel, A. (2009). Policies and politics in social pacts in Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 15(1), 17–26.CrossRef
Häusermann, S., Picot, G., & Geering, D. (2013). Review article: Rethinking party politics and the welfare state. Recent advances in the literature. British Journal of Political Science, 43(1), 221–240.CrossRef
Hibbs, D. (1977). Political parties and macroeconomic policy. American Political Science Review, 71(4), 1467–1487.CrossRef
Höhmann, D. (2017). The effect of legislature size on public spending: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design. Public Choice, 173(3), 345–367.CrossRef
Imbeau, L. M., Pétry, F., & Lamari, M. (2001). Left–right party ideology and government policies: A meta-analysis. European Journal of Political Research, 40(1), 1–29.
Keohane, R. O., & Nye, J. S. (1989). Power and interdependence. New York: Harper.
Klüver, H., & Pickup, M. (2019). Are they listening? Public opinion, interest groups and government responsiveness. West European Politics, 42(1), 91–112.CrossRef
König, T. (2006). The scope for policy change after the 2005 election: Veto players and intra-party decision-making. German Politics, 15(4), 520–532.CrossRef
Kontopoulos, Y., & Perotti, R. (1999). Government fragmentation and fiscal policy outcomes: Evidence from OECD countries. In J. M. Poterba (Ed.), Fiscal institutions and fiscal performance (pp. 81–102). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Korpi, W., & Palme, J. (2003). New politics and class politics in the context of austerity and globalization: Welfare state regress in 18 countries, 1975–95. American Political Science Review, 97(3), 425–446.CrossRef
Marlow, M. L., & Orzechowski, W. (1996). Public sector unions and public spending. Public Choice, 89(1–2), 1–16.CrossRef
Mattina, L., & Carrieri, M. (2017). Left-of-centre parties and trade unions in Italy: From party dominance to a dialogue of the deaf. In E. H. Allern & T. Bale (Eds.), Left-of-centre parties and trade unions in the twenty-first century (pp. 170–186). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef
McDonald, M. D., & Budge, I. (2005). Elections, parties, democracy. Conferring the median mandate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef
Mershon, C. (1996). The costs of coalition: Coalition theories and Italian governments. American Political Science Review, 90(3), 534–554.CrossRef
Mershon, C. (2001). Contending models of portfolio allocation and office payoffs to party factions: Italy 1963–1979. American Journal of Political Science, 45(2), 277–293.CrossRef
Molina, O., & Rhodes, M. (2002). Corporatism: The past, present, and future of a concept. Annual Review of Political Science, 5, 305–331.CrossRef
Müller, W. C., & Strom, K. (2000). Coalition government in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Natali, D., & Pochet, P. (2009). The evolution of social pacts in the EMU era: What type of institutionalization? European Journal of Industrial Relations, 15(2), 147–166.CrossRef
Nijhuis, D. O. (2009). Revisiting the role of labor: Worker solidarity, employer opposition, and the development of old-age pensions in the Netherlands and United Kingdom. World Politics, 61(2), 296–329.CrossRef
Oliver, R. J. (2011). Powerful remnants? The politics of egalitarian bargaining institutions in Italy and Sweden. Socio-Economic Review, 9(3), 533–566.CrossRef
Padovano, F., & Venturi, L. (2001). Wars of attrition in Italian government coalitions and fiscal performance: 1948–1994. Public Choice, 109(1–2), 15–54.CrossRef
Persico, N., Pueblita, J. C. R., & Silverman, D. (2011). Factions and political competition. Journal of Political Economy, 119(2), 242–288.CrossRef
Pierson, P. (1994). Dismantling the welfare state? Reagan, Thatcher and the politics of retrenchment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef
Powell, G. B. (2009). The ideological congruence controversy: The impact of alternative measures, data, and time periods on the effects of election rules. Comparative Political Studies, 42(12), 1475–1497.CrossRef
Proksch, S., & Slapin, J. B. (2012). Institutional foundations of legislative speeches. American Journal of Political Science, 53(3), 520–537.CrossRef
Rose, R. (1984). Do parties make a difference? (2nd ed.). Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.CrossRef
Roubini, N., & Sachs, J. D. (1989). Government spending and budget deficits in the industrial economies. NBER working paper number 2919.
Russo, F., & Verzichelli, L. (2016). Government ideology and party priorities: The determinants of public spending changes in Italy. Italian Political Science Review, 46(3), 269–290.
Solé-Ollé, A. (2006). The effects of party competition on budget outcomes: Empirical evidence from local governments in Spain. Public Choice, 126(1–2), 145–176.CrossRef
Taylor-Gooby, P. (2002). The silver age of the welfare state: Perspectives on resilience. Journal of Social Policy, 31(4), 597–622.CrossRef
Tsebelis, G. (2002). Veto players: How political institutions work. Princeton: Princeton University Press/Russell Sage.CrossRef
Volkerink, B., & de Haan, J. (2001). Fragmented government effects on fiscal policy: New evidence. Public Choice, 109(3–4), 221–242.CrossRef
Warwick, P. V. (1992). Ideological diversity and government survival in Western European parliamentary democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 25(3), 332–361.CrossRef
Warwick, P. V. (2011). Voters, parties, and declared government policy. Comparative Political Studies, 44(12), 1675–1699.CrossRef
Weingast, B. R., Shepsle, K. A., & Johnsen, C. (1981). The political economy of benefits and costs: A neoclassical approach to distributive politics. The Journal of Political Economy, 89(4), 642–664.CrossRef
Zucchini, F. (2011). Government alternation and legislative agenda setting. European Journal of Political Research, 50(6), 749–774.CrossRef
Zuckerman, A. (1979). The politics of factions: Christian democratic rule in Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Metadata
Title
Intra-party politics and interest groups: missing links in explaining government effectiveness
Authors
Andrea Ceron
Luigi Curini
Fedra Negri
Publication date
28-01-2019
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Public Choice / Issue 3-4/2019
Print ISSN: 0048-5829
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7101
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-019-00644-0

Other articles of this Issue 3-4/2019

Public Choice 3-4/2019 Go to the issue

OriginalPaper

The incumbent’s preference for imperfect commitment

OriginalPaper

An empirical examination of institutions and cross-country incarceration rates

Book Review

Milan Vaishnav, When crime pays: money and muscle in Indian politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. xxiii + 410 pages. USD 40.00 (cloth)

OriginalPaper

Is civic duty the solution to the paradox of voting?

OriginalPaper

Sabotage in team contests

Book Review

Randall G. Holcombe: Political capitalism: how economic and political power is made and maintained