European parties' performance in electoral competition

Abstract: This article focuses on competition for votes between parties, as it existed in Western Europe in the period of the direct election to the European Parliament in 1989. Following earlier research by Van der Eijk and Niemöller, an instrument is introduced to measure the probability of party choice of EC citizens which establishes the likelihood of respondents to vote for any of the nationally relevant options/parties. A number of substantive conclusions about political parties'competitive performance result from this research. First, a single mechanism seems to structure electoral competition in all EC member-countries. Second, the competitive performance of political parties is not affected by their governmental status, their ideological position, and the degree of politicisation of the electoral environment. And third, parties'competitive performance is strongly affected by the degree of uniqueness of their electoral potential, their mobilising capacities, their ideological extremity and their sheer size.     

STATE REGULATORY CAPACITY: EXPERIENCES FROM PUBLIC SECTOR REFORMS IN NORWAY

State regulatory capacity is being threatened by internationalization, commercialization and persistent demand for public services. The article addresses the overarching question of how the state is changing due to recent public sector reforms. By studying changes in the regulation of the health care sector and the food sector in Norway, the article challenges the assumption that recent public sector reforms have necessarily led to a decline of the central state's regulatory strength. The conclusions are that the central state level has in fact been strengthened by regulatory reforms, by transferring authority to the state level and by enhancing the central administration's co‐ordinating and regulating capacity.     

ISSUE FRAMING AND SECTOR CHARACTER AS CRITICAL PARAMETERS FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING‐OUT IN THE UK

This article shows that variations in how two UK governments justified contracting‐out (issue framing), combined with shifting sector‐derived incentives for union activism (sector character), can help explain the extent of contracting‐out. Janitorial service, an activity of the UK government that should have been ‘low hanging fruit' for its prolific reformers, proved difficult to contract‐out for Thatcher's New Right Conservatives, but easier to contract‐out for Blair's New Labour. The New Right government framed contracting‐out narrowly, as merely an improvement in operational efficiency, and its reform faced unions that stood to lose a great deal from movement of janitorial jobs to private firms. In contrast, the New Labour government framed contracting‐out broadly, as a means to efficient social justice, and faced unions with low stakes in government janitors. As a consequence, UK government units could expect lower benefit and higher cost from contracting‐out janitors under Thatcher than they would under Blair.     

Public opinion towards welfare state reform: The role of political trust and government satisfaction

The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped to address the challenges of today's post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have therefore called for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities). Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucial but hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matter because future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfaction can attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eight European countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find that trust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideological standpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countries manage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.     

INDEPENDENT REGULATORY BODIES AND IMPOSSIBLE JOBS: THE FAILURE OF GERMAN PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING REGULATION

This case study takes the rise and fall of licence fee indexation within German public service regulation as an example and traces mechanisms of re‐politicization of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs). According to the evidence, agency contestation is likely when: (1) administrative cultures result in incoherencies in institutional design; (2) IRAs deal with redistribution; (3) conflicts about principles of regulation persist; (4) IRAs pursue one particular regulatory ideology; (5) controversial regulatory output is highly visible; and (6) affected interests are not given a say. The article points to the relevance of new regulatory technologies that are likely to embody regulatory bias. Moreover, it seems that successful contestation of IRAs requires the conjunction of escalating factors. Nevertheless, such contestation might not result in a return to old modes of command and control.     

Who governs? Parties and policies in Denmark

Abstract. The literature on party government, coalition formation, and links between party and policy tends to assume that parties in government command legislative majorities that can be used to enact desired policies. This assumption, however, does not apply in general. In Scandinavia, and especially in Denmark, the minority type of government is predominant. Minority governments cannot govern by means of their own votes. Two questions for research are therefore obvious. Why do Scandinavian countries deviate from the normal pattern of government formation? And what are the consequences of minority government for policy making? While the first question has been treated in recent research, this paper carries the analysis a step further by exploring the policy consequences of minority government in Denmark during the 1980s. It is shown that the government may in fact not always govern, that the government may actually be the opposition, and, consequently, that the party-policy link can indeed be extremely complex.