How does Politics Matter?: Structure or Agency in the Determination of Public Policy Outcomes*

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Abstract
The controversy about whether ‘politics matters’ in the determination of public policy outcomes is frequently overlaid by assumptions concerning the role of structure and agency in human affairs. However, although it is usually assumed that the debate is about the rival explanatory claims of economic structure and political choice, the studies undertaken in the public policy field are almost invariably structural in character. Explicit recognition that the debate is about political and economic structures and the linkages between them will strengthen our ability to understand the nature of policy determination in the contemporary state. This view is illustrated by discussion and re‐analysis of Cameron's thesis that the structure of international trade is the major determinant of the expansion of the public economy. What we do is to look at the relationship between the international economy and a wide variety of public expenditure patterns in eighteen capitalist democracies both in the early 1960s and mid‐1970s. The analysis suggests that Cameron mis‐specifies the relationship between political and economic structure, and that an important factor conditioning contemporary expenditure patterns is the way in which the emergence of modern party systems structured the opportunity for lower and middle‐class participation in political life.