The happy median? : an examination of the role of partisanship on social spending

Abstract

This thesis examines the effect of party-level partisanship on social spending outcomes. Building a model in which party-politician bargaining plays a central role in determining the passage of bills, this paper develops a theory predicting the superior performance of moderate parties in proposing and passing legislation. Testing this theory using historical roll-call and social spending data, this paper finds that the effects of ideology are not so simple, and that the effects of partisanship on party effectiveness varies with the type of policy examined.