Abstract
How do politicians from programmatic parties govern when their programmatic commitments are inconsistent with voters’ expectations? This article demonstrates that anticipated electoral pressures can lead politicians from programmatic parties to resemble those from nonprogrammatic parties. When politicians from programmatic parties believe that voters will evaluate their performance using nonprogrammatic criteria, they engage in linkage switches: They initially campaign on programmatic platforms, but prioritize nonprogrammatic actions in office. I support this claim with evidence from Brazilian municipalities (1996-2012), where the Workers’ Party (PT) employed programmatic appeals in an otherwise nonprogrammatic political context. Using a regression discontinuity design and the semi-automated text analysis of campaign platforms, I demonstrate that PT mayors initially ran on programmatic platforms, but once in office, they responded to anticipated electoral pressures by prioritizing actions that were inconsistent with the party’s programmatic orientation.
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