How Politics Matter When Policies Change: Understanding Policy Change as a Political Problem

摘要

The paper presents a model of the decision-making process that can help to understand the politics of policy change and stability. The model takes as a starting point veto players. Since these actors are mostly political parties in Western democracies, their preferences can be modelled as policy seeking and vote maximization. Thus, governing parties try to adopt certain policies which differ according to their partisan orientation. The adoption of policies may, however, be impeded by electoral considerations unless the government is confronted with economic problems that put its re-election at risk. In addition, the existence of further veto players can make the adoption of reforms difficult. Policy change comes about if at least one element of the veto player constellation changes or if an external shock occurs. Both of these mechanisms are discussed in more detail, taking a change in the partisan complexion of government and globalization as examples.