PARTY IDEOLOGY AND PUBLIC EXPENDITURE: ARGUMENTS FROM COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Dejan Bursać

Abstract

The current scientific literature in the fields of political science and political economy contains a vast number of studies that have examined the impact of party ideology on different economic outcomes, and more specifically, on public spending. Geographically but also politically, the literature can be divided in two groups. The first one refers to the studies of those authors who have tested partisan influence on consumption in developed democracies, while the second refers to the disproportionately smaller number of studies in which this correlation has been analyzed with regard to former socialist countries – mainly those from the east of the European continent. Despite a large body of research and abundance of evidence in support of the hypothesis, political science has not yet given a definitive answer to the dilemma regarding the ideological effect on fiscal developments, meaning that academic debate is still active, albeit with less intensity than in the late 20^th century.

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