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French coalition politics is distinctive in Western Europe. There is a strongly imbalanced power structures in favour of the party of the President (or Prime Minister in times of cohabitation). France is therefore a particular and rather extreme case of dominant Prime Minister Model. The constitution of the Fifth Republic creates strong incentives to build pre-electoral alliances, but the majoritarian electoral system and semi-presidentialism have led to an extreme predominance by the main parties, and in particular of the chief of the executive, over their junior partners. Institutional reforms have still reinforced the weight of president. Small parties can exert leverage mainly before the elections, given their capacity to negotiate their support during the campaign and mutual withdrawals for the first or the second round of elections. Once the election is passed, coalition politics are strongly structured by presidential logics (outside cohabitations) and take place to a large extent beyond parties: individual MPs from the same party may join different parliamentary groups depending on their attitude towards the president. Given the absence of formal coalition governance arrangements, junior parties' resources for influencing government policies are very much restricted to public communication, informal exchanges with the chief of the executive, and the threat to leave the coalition. Modalities of coalition governance provide the chief of the executive (i.e. the president since 2002) with strong leadership, extensive leverage in policymaking and a final say in interministerial disputes. He usually manages to get his way and only rarely consult parties in his coalition. Consequently, these parties will affect policy outcomes only with respect to very emblematic issues (usually one or two) and to the definition of "red lines" likely to be a motivation for terminating their participation to government. Political parties are aware of this and do not expect coalition agreements to be implemented – they conceive ...

French coalition politics is distinctive in Western Europe. There is a strongly imbalanced power structures in favour of the party of the President (or Prime Minister in times of cohabitation). France is therefore a particular and rather extreme case of dominant Prime Minister Model. The constitution of the Fifth Republic creates strong incentives to build pre-electoral alliances, but the majoritarian electoral system and semi-presidentialism have led to an extreme predominance by the main parties, and in particular of the chief of the executive, over their junior partners. Institutional reforms have still reinforced the weight of president. Small parties can exert leverage mainly before the elections, given their capacity to negotiate their support during the campaign and mutual withdrawals for the first or the second round of elections. Once the election is passed, coalition politics are strongly structured by presidential logics (outside cohabitations) and take place to a large extent beyond parties: individual MPs from the same party may join different parliamentary groups depending on their attitude towards the president. Given the absence of formal coalition governance arrangements, junior parties' resources for influencing government policies are very much restricted to public communication, informal exchanges with the chief of the executive, and the threat to leave the coalition. Modalities of coalition governance provide the chief of the executive (i.e. the president since 2002) with strong leadership, extensive leverage in policymaking and a final say in interministerial disputes. He usually manages to get his way and only rarely consult parties in his coalition. Consequently, these parties will affect policy outcomes only with respect to very emblematic issues (usually one or two) and to the definition of "red lines" likely to be a motivation for terminating their participation to government. Political parties are aware of this and do not expect coalition agreements to be implemented – they conceive ...

French coalition politics is distinctive in Western Europe. There is a strongly imbalanced power structures in favour of the party of the President (or Prime Minister in times of cohabitation). France is therefore a particular and rather extreme case of dominant Prime Minister Model. The constitution of the Fifth Republic creates strong incentives to build pre-electoral alliances, but the majoritarian electoral system and semi-presidentialism have led to an extreme predominance by the main parties, and in particular of the chief of the executive, over their junior partners. Institutional reforms have still reinforced the weight of president. Small parties can exert leverage mainly before the elections, given their capacity to negotiate their support during the campaign and mutual withdrawals for the first or the second round of elections. Once the election is passed, coalition politics are strongly structured by presidential logics (outside cohabitations) and take place to a large extent beyond parties: individual MPs from the same party may join different parliamentary groups depending on their attitude towards the president. Given the absence of formal coalition governance arrangements, junior parties' resources for influencing government policies are very much restricted to public communication, informal exchanges with the chief of the executive, and the threat to leave the coalition. Modalities of coalition governance provide the chief of the executive (i.e. the president since 2002) with strong leadership, extensive leverage in policymaking and a final say in interministerial disputes. He usually manages to get his way and only rarely consult parties in his coalition. Consequently, these parties will affect policy outcomes only with respect to very emblematic issues (usually one or two) and to the definition of "red lines" likely to be a motivation for terminating their participation to government. Political parties are aware of this and do not expect coalition agreements to be implemented – they conceive ...

Empirical assessments of issue competition lack both conceptual precision in the use of the concept of 'policy issue', and sufficient studies integrating both salience and positional perspectives. This article specifies an operational definition of a 'policy issue' suited for the analysis of issue competition in the electoral arena and beyond, and proposes a typology of electoral issues that takes into account the two sides of issue competition -- the decision to address an issue, and the adoption of a diverging or similar position on it. This typology allows distinguishing proprietal, consensual, blurred and conflictual issues. The framework is illustrated with an analysis of EU-related issues in the electoral manifestos of British, French and German parties. This source did not enable us to identify any blurred issue, but our exploratory study delivers several conclusions regarding the other issue types. Proprietal issues appear to be marginal, indicating that parties tend to devote attention to the same issues and that issue ownership is highly contested. We further observe a primacy of consensus in EU-related discourses, especially among governing parties. Adapted from the source document.

A key factor in modern democracies' legitimisation is the extent to which policies submitted for public approval before an election translate into material outcomes once a political party has won power. Current research finds no clear empirical evidence for partisanship in policy-making nor has any unified theory been offered or tested systematically. This article addresses that gap by offering a conditional approach to policy-making undertaken by parties in government. It suggests that partisan influence on policy depends on both office-holders' capacity for implementing policies evoked during their electoral campaigns and on governing parties' incentives to implement electoral promises. Data from French Agendas Project datasets is used to compare the contents of governing parties' pre-election manifestos with legislation passed in France between 1981 and 2012. Panel negative binomial regressions on electoral and legislative agendas support the expected outcome, namely that issues featuring in governing parties' electoral manifesto have had an impact on their subsequent legislative agendas, with the effect depending on both partisan capacities and incentives. Party programmes do matter in policy-making, albeit only under certain conditions.

A key factor in modern democracies' legitimisation is the extent to which policies submitted for public approval before an election translate into material outcomes once a political party has won power. Current research finds no clear empirical evidence for partisanship in policy-making nor has any unified theory been offered or tested systematically. This article addresses that gap by offering a conditional approach to policy-making undertaken by parties in government. It suggests that partisan influence on policy depends on both office-holders' capacity for implementing policies evoked during their electoral campaigns and on governing parties' incentives to implement electoral promises. Data from French Agendas Project datasets is used to compare the contents of governing parties' pre-election manifestos with legislation passed in France between 1981 and 2012. Panel negative binomial regressions on electoral and legislative agendas support the expected outcome, namely that issues featuring in governing parties' electoral manifesto have had an impact on their subsequent legislative agendas, with the effect depending on both partisan capacities and incentives. Party programmes do matter in policy-making, albeit only under certain conditions.

A key factor in modern democracies' legitimisation is the extent to which policies submitted for public approval before an election translate into material outcomes once a political party has won power. Current research finds no clear empirical evidence for partisanship in policy-making nor has any unified theory been offered or tested systematically. This article addresses that gap by offering a conditional approach to policy-making undertaken by parties in government. It suggests that partisan influence on policy depends on both office-holders' capacity for implementing policies evoked during their electoral campaigns and on governing parties' incentives to implement electoral promises. Data from French Agendas Project datasets is used to compare the contents of governing parties' pre-election manifestos with legislation passed in France between 1981 and 2012. Panel negative binomial regressions on electoral and legislative agendas support the expected outcome, namely that issues featuring in governing parties' electoral manifesto have had an impact on their subsequent legislative agendas, with the effect depending on both partisan capacities and incentives. Party programmes do matter in policy-making, albeit only under certain conditions.

A key factor in modern democracies' legitimisation is the extent to which policies submitted for public approval before an election translate into material outcomes once a political party has won power. Current research finds no clear empirical evidence for partisanship in policy-making nor has any unified theory been offered or tested systematically. This article addresses that gap by offering a conditional approach to policy-making undertaken by parties in government. It suggests that partisan influence on policy depends on both office-holders' capacity for implementing policies evoked during their electoral campaigns and on governing parties' incentives to implement electoral promises. Data from French Agendas Project datasets is used to compare the contents of governing parties' pre-election manifestos with legislation passed in France between 1981 and 2012. Panel negative binomial regressions on electoral and legislative agendas support the expected outcome, namely that issues featuring in governing parties' electoral manifesto have had an impact on their subsequent legislative agendas, with the effect depending on both partisan capacities and incentives. Party programmes do matter in policy-making, albeit only under certain conditions.