TY - JOUR
T1 - The policy mood in Spain: the thermostat in a warm climate, 1978–2017
T2 - The thermostat in a warm climate, 1978-2017
AU - Bartle, John
AU - Orriols, Lluís
AU - Bosch Gardella, Agusti
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. Agusti Bosch acknowledges the funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science through grant number CSO2017-83086-R.
Publisher Copyright:
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/5/14
Y1 - 2020/5/14
N2 - Representative democracies are supposed to be uniquely virtuous in that they ensure that public preferences drive public policy. Dynamic representation is the outcome of a recurring interaction between electorate and parties that can be observed at the macro level. Preferences can shape government policy via two possible mechanisms. 'Policy accomodation' suggests that governments respond directly to the electorate's preferences. 'Electoral turnover', on the other hand, assumes that preferences shape policy indirectly. Parties pursue their ideological goals, and public preferences respond 'thermostatically' by moving in the opposite direction to policy. This causes voters to switch votes and eventually leads to a turnover of power from one 'side' to 'the other'. In this paper, we estimate preferences for government activity ('the policy mood') in Spain between 1978 and 2017. We show that mood responds 'thermostatically' to policy. Variations in mood are associated with support for parties. Policy is driven by party control but is not thermostatically responsive to mood. It appears that in Spain - like Britain - dynamic representation can only be achieved by electoral turnover. We consider the implications of this for our understanding of how representation works.
AB - Representative democracies are supposed to be uniquely virtuous in that they ensure that public preferences drive public policy. Dynamic representation is the outcome of a recurring interaction between electorate and parties that can be observed at the macro level. Preferences can shape government policy via two possible mechanisms. 'Policy accomodation' suggests that governments respond directly to the electorate's preferences. 'Electoral turnover', on the other hand, assumes that preferences shape policy indirectly. Parties pursue their ideological goals, and public preferences respond 'thermostatically' by moving in the opposite direction to policy. This causes voters to switch votes and eventually leads to a turnover of power from one 'side' to 'the other'. In this paper, we estimate preferences for government activity ('the policy mood') in Spain between 1978 and 2017. We show that mood responds 'thermostatically' to policy. Variations in mood are associated with support for parties. Policy is driven by party control but is not thermostatically responsive to mood. It appears that in Spain - like Britain - dynamic representation can only be achieved by electoral turnover. We consider the implications of this for our understanding of how representation works.
KW - dynamic representation
KW - elections
KW - macro polity
KW - policy mood
KW - Spain
KW - thermostatic model
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85079507435&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S175577392000003X
DO - 10.1017/S175577392000003X
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85079507435
VL - 12
SP - 133
EP - 153
JO - European Political Science Review
JF - European Political Science Review
SN - 1755-7739
IS - 2
M1 - 175577392000003
ER -