Left-right party ideology and government policies: A meta-analysis

This paper summarizes how the partisan influence literature assesses the re lationship between the left-right party composition of government and polic y outputs through a meta-analysis of 693 parameter estimates of the party-p olicy relationship published in 43 empirical studies. Based on a simplified `combined tests' meta-analytic technique, we show that the average correla tion between the party composition of government and policy outputs is not significantly different from zero. A mutivariate logistic regression analys is examines how support for partisan theory is affected by a subset of medi ating factors that can be applied to all the estimates under review. The an alysis demonstrates that there are clearly identifiable conditions under wh ich the probability of support for partisan theory can be substantially inc reased. We conclude that further research is needed on institutional and so cio-economic determinants of public policy.