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Minority Governments and Pledge Fulfilment: Evidence from Portugal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2016

Catherine Moury  and
Jorge M. Fernandes
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Abstract

In an age of rampant distrust and disaffection, pledge fulfilment is important for the quality of delegation between voters and elected officials. In this article, we make an empirical appraisal of pledge fulfilment in Portugal. Do Portuguese minority governments fulfil their pledges? How do they fulfil those pledges? What is the role of opposition parties? Using an original data set with over 3,000 electoral pledges for three Socialist governments, as well as interviews with former ministers and party leaders, our evidence suggests that: (1) minority governments fulfil at least as many pledges as their majority counterparts; (2) the main opposition party manages to extract the most policy benefits; and (3) economic conditions and cohabitation situations matter for pledge fulfilment.

Keywords

Portugalminority governmentspledge fulfilmentgovernment
Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 335 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

Catherine Moury is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the FCSH-Universidade Nova, Lisbon. Contact email: catherine.moury@fcsh.unl.pt.

Jorge M. Fernandes is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Comparative Politics at the University of Bamberg. Contact email: jorge.fernandes@uni-bamberg.de.

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