Elite Characteristics and the Fulfilment of Election Pledges in Australia

We develop and test an explanation of the impact of decision-makers on government policy in Australia. An election pledge is a promise made a party during an election campaign to take a specific and verifiable policy action if it enters government. Ministers in particular are generally expected to influence the fulfilment of election promises that fall under their policy jurisdictions. In addition to adapting to new circumstances, reshuffles initiated by PMs indeed also allow them to punish poor ministerial performance. Ministers’ preferences on those election pledges derive both from their affinity with the ideological position of their parties and the extent to which pledges are congruent with those ideological positions. Their standing in the party, political experience and policy-area expertise further affect their incentives and capacity in implementing their party’s electoral promises. We test our hypotheses regarding the make-up of the government and the individual characteristics of decision-makers using new collected data on the fulfilment of abut 600 election pledges made by Australian government and opposition parties (2010-2019). Australia largely operates as a two-party system but Coalition governments (2013-2019) are effectively made of two parties (Liberals and Nationals). Both sides of the aisle are made of disciplined yet factionalised parties. Given the advent of minority governments and the role of Senate in legislation, we envisage the role of government ministers under those varying conditions but also widen the scope of previous work by considering the characteristics of other decision-makers likely to influence election pledge fulfilment.