Do Parties Make a Difference? Parties and the Size of Government in Liberal Democracies

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Abstract
The paper attempts to determine whether parties of the left, when in government, spend more than parties of the right. It first reviews the theoretical literature and concludes that parties are likely to make a difference, but only a modest one. It then reviews previous empirical studies, which come out with conflicting results. It finally proposes a study that covers 15 liberal democracies over a period of 28 years, from 1960 to 1987, and combines longitudinal, cross-sectional, and pooled designs. The analysis shows that parties of the left do spend a little more than parties of the right. The difference, however, emerges only for majority governments whose party composition remains unchanged over a number of years, an indication that it takes time for parties to affect total spending.

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