We examine citizens’ evaluations of specific campaign pledge fulfillment using data from the 2015 Canadian Election Study. We find that the accuracy of these evaluations increases in the presence of factors related to citizens’ informed judgments, namely, political knowledge and the relative importance of each pledge. On the other hand, we find that citizens’ evaluations often turn on factors not based on informed judgments but rather on group identities and a priori beliefs, including partisan identification and political trust. The presence of these factors does not increase the likelihood of accuracy of pledge evaluations. We also find, through a split-ballot experiment, that even though a change in question wording affects the tone of pledge evaluations, it does not affect their accuracy.
AchenCH (1992) Social psychology, demographic variables, and linear regression: breaking the iron triangle in voting research. Political Behavior14(3): 195–211.
2.
AndersenRTilleyJHeathAF (2005) Political knowledge and enlightened preferences: party choice through the electoral cycle. British Journal of Political Science35(2): 285–302.
3.
ArtésJ (2013) Do Spanish politicians keep their promises?Party Politics19: 143–158.
4.
ArtésJBustosA (2008) Electoral promises and minority governments: an empirical study. European Journal of Political Research47: 307–333.
5.
BartelsL (2002). Beyond the running tally: partisan bias in political perceptions. Political Behavior24(2): 117–150.
6.
BelknapGCampbellA (1951) Political party identification and attitudes toward foreign policy. Public Opinion Quarterly15(4): 601–623.
7.
BrewerP (2004) International trust and public opinion about world affairs. American Journal of Political Science48: 93–109.
8.
CampbellAConversePEMillerWE, et al. (1960). The American Voter. New York: Wiley
9.
Delli-CarpiniMXKeeterS (1996) What Americans know about Politics and why it Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
10.
DownsA (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.
11.
DuchRMPalmerHDAndersonCJ (2000) Heterogeneity in perceptions of national economic conditions. American Journal of Political Science44: 635–652.
12.
FiorinaMP (1981) Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
13.
HåkanssonNNaurinE (2016) Promising ever more: an empirical account of Swedish parties’ pledge making during 20 years. Party Politics22(3): 393–404.
14.
HardinR (2002) Trust and Trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
15.
HetheringtonMJ (2006) Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
16.
ISSP Research Group (2008): International Social Survey Programme: Role of Government IV - ISSP 2006. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA4700 Data file Version 1.0.0. DOI: 10.4232/1.4700
17.
KahnemanD (2003) A perspective on judgment and choice: mapping bounded rationality. American Psychologist58: 697–720.
18.
KalogeropoulouE (1989) Election promises and government performance in Greece: PASOK’s fulfillment of its 1981 election pledges. European Journal of Political Research17(3): 289–311.
19.
KlingemannHDHofferbertRIBudgeI (1994) Parties, Policies and Democracy. Boulder: Westview Press.
20.
KostadinovaP (2013) Democratic performance in post-communist Bulgaria: election pledges and levels of fulfillment, 1997–2005. East European Politics29(2): 190–207.
21.
KrosnickJA (1991) Response strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of attitude measures in surveys. Applied Cognitive Psychology5(3): 213–236.
22.
KuklinskiJQuirkPJ (2000) Reconsidering the rational public: cognition, heuristics, and mass opinion. In: LupiaAMcCubbinsMDPopkinSL (eds) Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice and the Bounds of Rationality. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 153–182.
23.
KundaZ (1990) The case for motivated political reasoning. Psychological Bulletin108: 480–498.
24.
Lewis-BeckMSStegmaierM (2000) Economic determinants of electoral outcomes. Annual Review of Political Science3: 183–219.
25.
LippmannW (1922) Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
26.
LodgeMTaberC (2000). Three steps toward a theory of motivated political reasoning. In LupiaAMcCubbinsMPopkinS (Eds) Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology, pp. 183–213). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511805813.009
27.
LupiaA (2016) Uninformed: Why People know so Little about Politics and What we can do about it. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
28.
MaloyJS (2009) Two concepts of trust. The Journal of Politics71: 492–505.
29.
MansbridgeJ (2003) Rethinking representation. American Political Science Review97: 515–528.
30.
ManserghLE (2004) Do parties make a difference? The case of governments in Ireland, 1977–1997. PhD Thesis, Dublin, Republic of Ireland: Trinity College Dublin.
31.
ManserghLEThomsonR (2007) Election pledges, party competition and policymaking. Comparative Politics39(3): 311–329.
32.
MarshMTilleyJ (2010) The attribution of credit and blame to governments and its impact on vote choice. British Journal of Political Science40(1): 115.
33.
MillerWE (1991) Party identification, realignment, and party voting: back to the basics. American Political Science Review85(2): 557–568.
34.
MillerMKOrrSK (2008) Experimenting with a “third way” in political knowledge estimation. Public Opinion Quarterly72(4): 768–780.
35.
MonièreD (1988) Le Discours Électoral. Les Politiciens Sont-ils Fiables?Montréal: Québec/Amérique.
36.
MouryC (2011) Italian coalitions and electoral promises: assessing the democratic performance of the Prodi I and Berlusconi II governments. Modern Italy16(1): 35–50.
37.
MouryCFernandesJ (2018). Minority governments and pledge fulfilment: evidence from portugal. Government and Opposition53(2): 335–355. DOI: 10.1017/gov.2016.14
NaurinE (2011) Election Promises, Party Behaviour and Voter Perceptions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
40.
NaurinE (2014). Is a promise a promise? Election pledge fulfilment in comparative perspective using Sweden as an example. West European Politics37(5): 1046–1064.
41.
NaurinEOscarssonHE (2017) When and why are voters correct in their evaluations of specific government performance?Political Studies65(4): 860–876.
42.
NorrisP (2000) A virtuous circle: Political communications in postindustrial societies. Cambridge University Press.
43.
ParryG (1976) Trust, distrust, and consensus. British Journal of Political Science6: 129–142.
44.
PattersonTE (1993) Out of Order. New York: Knopf.
45.
PétryDuval (Forthcoming). Electoral promises and single party governments: the role of party ideology and budget balance in pledge fulfilment. Canadian Journal of Political Science, Forthcoming.
46.
PétryF (2014) A tale of two perspectives: election promises and government actions in Canada. In: GidengilEBastedoH (eds) Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up: Perceptions and Performances. UBC Press, pp. 231–252.
47.
PétryFDuvalD (2015) The extent to which governments implement campaign promises. Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law/Revue de Droit Parlementaire et Politique (Special Edition) 1046–1064.
48.
PétryFDuvalD (2017) When heuristics go bad: citizens’s misevaluations of campaign pledge fulfillment. Electoral Studies50(December): 116–127.
49.
PétryFDuvalDBirchL (2018) Do regional governments fulfill fewer election promises than national governments? The case of Quebec in comparative perspective. Party Politics. Epub ahead of print 9 July 2018. DOI: 10.1177/1354068818787353
50.
PomperGMLedermanSS (1980) Elections in America: Control and Influence in Democratic Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Longman.
51.
PopkinS (1991) The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
52.
PowellGBJrWhittenGD (1993) A cross-national analysis of economic voting: taking account of the political context. American Journal of Political Science37(2): 391–414.
53.
RallingsC (1987) The influence of election programs: Britain and Canada 1945–1979. In: BudgeIRobertsonDHearlD (eds) Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analysis of Post-War Election Programs in Nineteen Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 211–234.
54.
RosanvallonPGoldhammerA (2013) Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust. New York: Cambridge University Press.
55.
RoyedTJ (1996) Testing the mandate model in Britain and the united states: evidence from the Reagan and Thatcher eras. British Journal of Political Science26: 45–80.
56.
SchermannKEnnser-JedenastikL (2012) Linking election pledges to policy outcomes: the Austrian case. In: ECPR Graduate Conference, Bremen, 4–6 July 2012, pp. 1–19.
57.
SorokaSN (2014) Negativity in Democratic Politics: Causes and Consequences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
58.
ThomsonR (2001) The program to policy linkage: the fulfillment of election pledges on socio-economic policy in the Netherlands, 1986–1998. European Journal of Political Research40: 171–197.
59.
ThomsonR (2011) Citizens’ evaluations of the fulfillment of election pledges: evidence from Ireland. The Journal of Politics73: 187–201.
60.
ThomsonRBrandenburgH (2019) Trust and citizens’ evaluations of promise keeping by governing parties. Political Studies67(1): 249–266.
61.
ThomsonRRoyedTNaurinE, et al. (2017) The fulfillment of parties’ election pledges: a comparative study on the impact of power sharing. American Journal of Political Science61(3):527–542.
62.
TorosE (2015) Piecrust promises: an analysis of the Turkish political parties’ electoral pledges. Turkish Studies16(2): 240–252.
63.
TverskyAKahnemanD (1974) Judgment under uncertainty. Science185: 1124–1131.
64.
WalgraveSDe SwertK (2007) Where does issue ownership come from? From the party or from the media? Issue-party identifications in Belgium, 1991–2005. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics12(1): 37–67.
65.
ZallerJ (1992) The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
