The policy impact of party programmes and government declarations in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Abstract How well do party programmes and statements of government intent anticipate policy priorities across the history of a modern parliamentary democracy? This article examines the operation of a coalition government in the Federal Republic of Germany from its founding in 1949 through 1987. We analyze relationships between the electoral programmes of governing parties and central government policy priorities. We also examine the linkage function of ‘government declarations’, which are formal statements of intent offered by the leader of each in-coming government. Content analyses of party programmes and government declarations are fitted to variations on a model of cabinet government in order to predict spending shares. The level of explanatory power of party programmes is rather impressive. But likewise, the capacity of the minor coalition partner, the Free Democrats, to extract ‘blackmail’ is much higher than expected. The analyses are fitted to three lines of inquiry: democratic theory, comparative policy analysis, and coalition theory/research.

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