Why Does the Left Not Act Left?

Abstract

When testing impact of ideology on economic policy, the prominent literature usually regards government as one entity. That is why the current literature usually looks at the percentage of left or right in legislature when looking at ideological tendency of government policies. However, this paper argues that one needs to disintegrate government as at least two entities?executive and majority party or coalition government from legislature?because history has shown that executives often times deviate from their own party position and platform. Some have argued that ideology does not matter in developing countries because ideologically defined parties do not follow their ideologically framed preference when they come to power. For example, President Menem’s drastic economic reform was considered a major deviation from his party, and scholars have identified the occasion as an outlier or as an example of how ideology does not matter in developing democracies. This paper shows that it is not because ideology does not matter but because ideologically preferred policy choice often shits in order to reflect the changing cost and benefit calculations once the party comes to power, and I provide evidence using economic crisis and policy implementation in developing countries from 1978 to 2006.