Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Party Politics
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Narud, H. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Party Policies and Government Accountability

A Comparison between The Netherlands and Norway

Hanne Marthe Narud

This article deals with the accountability of coalition governments in multi-party systems. How does government responsibility affect popular support for parties? To what extent are `blame' and `credit' conditioned by the ideological distinctiveness of the parties concerned? These questions are analysed by investigating the electoral fate of incumbent parties in The Netherlands and Norway. Two case studies from these countries are also presented. The analysis reveals that it is rare for parties in a coalition government to suffer the same electoral fate. In the Dutch system, only the Liberal Conservatives show a fairly consistent pattern of losing as incumbents. This fate is shared by the Norwegian Conservatives. Analysis of the aggregate election results suggests that parties competing on the left-right dimension are penalized more for incumbency than are parties with other ideological leanings. In addition, the two case studies support the proposition that `blame' and `credit' are related to the economic performance of the government in general and the ideological distinctiveness of the parties in particular. Overall, the analysis indicates that voter expectations towards government performance are related to the control that the various parties can exert over distinct areas of policy.

Key Words: coalition bargaining • elections • government accountability • incumbency effects • party policies

Party Politics, Vol. 2, No. 4, 479-506 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/1354068896002004003
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Journal of Peace ResearchHome page
D. J. Brule and L. K. Williams
Democracy and Diversion: Government Arrangements, the Economy, and Dispute Initiation
Journal of Peace Research, November 1, 2009; 46(6): 777 - 798.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Journal of Theoretical PoliticsHome page
H. M. Narud
Electoral Competition and Coalition Bargaining in Multiparty Systems
Journal of Theoretical Politics, October 1, 1996; 8(4): 499 - 525.
[Abstract]