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When Left Is Right: Party Ideology and Policy in Post-Communist Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2009

MARGIT TAVITS  and
NATALIA LETKI
MARGIT TAVITS*
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
NATALIA LETKI*
Affiliation:
University of Warsaw
*
Margit Tavits is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1063, St. Louis, MO 63130 ([email protected]).
Natalia Letki is Assistant Professor, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, ul. Karowa 18, 00-324 Warsaw, Poland ([email protected]).
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Abstract

According to the classic partisan theory of spending, leftist parties are expected to increase government spending, and rightist parties are expected to decrease it. We argue that this relationship does not hold in post-Communist countries, where in the context of dual transition to democracy and to a market economy, leftist parties have had stronger incentives and better opportunities to enact tighter budgets, whereas rightist parties were compelled to spend more in order to alleviate economic hardships. We illustrate this theoretical argument with case studies from Hungary and Poland. We then test and find support for our theory by considering the influence of cabinet ideology on total, health, and education spending in thirteen post-Communist democracies from 1989 to 2004. We explore various alternative explanations and provide further narratives to support our causal argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 103 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 555 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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