Political Parties and their Manifestos: Inferring Party Policy Positions in Malawi since 1994

Supervised by

Espen Dhale, PhDMustafa Hussein, PhD

Introduction

Looks at issue variation across parties and elections with respect to manifestos (‘94,’99,’04)

The thesis looks at the behaviour of successful parties with respect to their electoral manifestos

It does not look at issue conflict/ideology (though inferred) but issue emphasis (saliency)

The study does not look at voter behaviour with respect to manifestos although it is somewhat inferred.

Objectives

The role of Political Parties in Policy Representation by inferring party policy positions since 1994

Specific Objectives

Differences in issue saliency across parties and elections (1994,1999,2004) using manifestos.

Policy commitment by parties in power (presidency/parliament)

Changes in national policies due to changes of government. (party/leadership in power)

Theory and Review of literature

Mandate Representation

Saliency theory

Parties, Elections, and Public Policy

Policy positions & ideologies in Malawi

Theory of mandate representation

Party Distinctiveness- meaning that at least two parties have policy profiles distinct from one another.

Voter information- voters must recognize the policy profile of each party

Voter motivation- voters ought to cast their ballots on the basis of the party policy profile they prefer to see implemented by a government

Cont’d

Voter majority- a majority of voters are revealed to have the same preferences, given the choices available

Electoral system translation- the election outcome clearly designates the party with majority electoral support to form government that will carry out its policy

Party Policy Commitment- the parties in government carry out policies as announced at the time of election

(McDonald et al,2004:5)

Issue Saliency Theory

Term used to identify which problems a party thinks are most important, and therefore pays much attention to.

It is about issue emphasis as opposed to issue conflict

Strengths for one party are likely to be points of weakness for the others, and program’s combination of emphases is likely to be unique to that party

Cont’d

salience theory argues that parties are different as far as selectivity of issue emphases is concerned.

“the classical conception of party competition assumes that all competitors compete on the same set of issues-tailoring their formulation to the calculation of electoral advantage”

(Hofferbert and Budge,1994:22)

Elections and Public Policy

The voters’ choice between the competing parties or candidates is one of the few ways that a nation can make a collective choice of the government goals

the influence of the citizen on public policy is not only based on the policy alternatives chosen but also through their role in selecting elites

V.O. Key, “unless mass views have some place in shaping of policy, all the talk about democracy is nonsense”

Parties and Public Policy

Budge and Laver (1993:499) “the idea that the policies of the government are affected by the policies of the parties that comprise them is at the heart of the theory of representative democracy.”

“policy priorities of governments in modern democracies reflect the formal programs presented by competing parties during elections…and that this congruence between promise and performance is at the heart of… democracy.”

(Klingemann, Hofferbert and Budge,1994:2)

Policies and Ideologies in Malawi

“it is a sad, open fact that the political parties we have in Malawi are weakly grounded ideologically and are preoccupied with a narrow range of national issues” (Phiri 2000:68-87)

“all the 1994 and 1999 UDF manifestos were consistently liberal in the message they attempted to portray to the electorate… and that the 1999 MCP manifesto was squarely conservative in its

provenance and appeal.” (Phiri, 2000: 77)

Cont’d

Svasand and Khembo (2007: 207-235) also argue that parties in Malawi have “limited ideological differences”, but acknowledge that there are definitely “some differences between parties in terms of issues addressed (saliency)…although less in terms of direction of the policy”.

Design and Methodology

This is Qualitative Research

The study has purposively sampled three current main parties in Malawi-DPP, MCP&UDF

17 Key Informant Interviews using Interview guide- NEC, MPs, and Experts

Coding- Manifestos (5Domains, 40 categories)

Content analysis- Quantitative (salience theory)

Content analysis- Qualitative

Other sources of information

Government policy documents Parliamentary Hansards Budget statements and opposition

responses- hansards Afro-barometer (2002 & 2005)

Major Findings

UDF & MCP have small but significant differences in issue salience –BUT no issue conflict

Govt Party make reference to manifestos when making policies- policy commitment

Parties may say the same thing but emphasis differs

Some changes in policy with change of party/leadership in power

Cont’d

DPP is implementing some of the 2004 UDF issues- MGDS is more vital to the DPP-some ministers don’t know DPP policy orientation…Shire-Zambezi Project

Manifestos don’t help someone win- hence little attention paid- parliamentary elections

Cont’d

Opposition parties have managed to push their manifestos to public agenda- subsidy was a motion moved by MCP

Issue saliency variations across elections- parties respond to prevailing events

Indirect party mandate as opposed to direct policy mandate (holding other electoral factors constant)

Issue Salience across Parties

Variations by Party

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

MCP 1994 UDF 1994 MCP 1999 UDF 1999 MCP 2004 UDF 2004

Per

cent

age

Agriculture

Welfare

Economy

Governance

Gvt/system

MCP Issue Saliency by Domain

MCP Issue Saliency by Domain

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Agriculture Welfare Economy Governance Gvt/system

Per

cent

age MCP 1994

MCP 1999

MCP 2004

UDF Issue Saliency by Domain

UDF Issue Saliency by Domain

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Agriculture Welfare Economy Governance Gvt/system

Perc

enta

ge

UDF 1994

UDF 1999

UDF 2004

UDF Saliency in Agriculture by categories

UDF agriculture by category

0.05.0

10.015.020.025.030.035.040.045.0

Subs

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1994

1999

2004

MCP Saliency in Agriculture by categories

MCP agriculture by category

0.05.0

10.015.020.025.030.0

Subs

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Mar

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1994

1999

2004

Policy Commitment & Policy Shift

Poverty alleviation programme- focused on social sector MASAF

MPRS-PPEs Agricultural policies-focus on the

poor smallholder as opposed to estate farming

Free Primary education Liberalization of the economy

2001/02-2002/03 Development Budget Allocation by Sector (Economic Report 2002)

Sector 2001/02 allocation (k million)

% share 2002/03 allocation (k million)

% share

Social sector 8,281.0 60.6 7,741.1 61.7

Education 2,410.0 17.6 2,195.6 15.5

Health 2,229.0 16.3 2,007.4 16.0

Water Supply and sanitation 2,494.0 18.2 1,907.1 15.2

Community services and social welfare 1,148.0 8.4 1,631.0 13.0

Agriculture and natural resources 1,586.0 11.6 1,756.5 14.0

Transport 2,717.0 19.9 2,2258.4 18.0

Other services 1,088.0 8.0 790.4 6.3

Total 13,672.0 100.0 12,546.4 100.0

Development Budget Allocation by Sector (k million) (Mid-Year Economic Review 1989)

Sector 1981/2 1982/3 1983/4 1984/5 1985/6 1986/7 1987/8 1988/9

Agriculture 27.87 30.52 37.31 28.72 25.88 50.44 80.20 65.31

Social Sector 13.49 23.44 26.81 27.87 23.54 24.50 23.90 54.43

Transport 49.17 35.80 33.60 50.51 65.10 71.99 66.98 164.0

Other 33.64 49.82 45.20 31.28 45.70 42.8 79.85 57.52

Cont’d

Tsoka (2002), and Khaila and Chibwana (2005) afro-barometer also show that UDF performed fairly well in the social sector but very poor in the economic sector

Mutharika (2004-2008)

Put more emphasis on economic affairs as compared to the UDF

Diverted from the UDF values of social spending in order to achieving macroeconomic stability

Implemented the Fertilizer subsidy-the MCP model

The MGDS policy plan

Conclusion

UDF & MCP are different in issue saliency but little in issue conflict

Issue saliency in both parties changes across elections

MCP emphasize the economy while the UDF puts emphasis in Social sector

Parties do not completely abandon their manifestos when in power

MCP&DPP reflect centre-right while UDF portrays centre-left

Zikomo!!