Party System Institutionalization and Government Spending

Although previous work has tirelessly considered a myriad of explanations for government spending levels, few extant studies have included considerations of party system institutionalization. Based on previous work, this is surprising since the level of party system institutionalization should significantly affect policymaking. In this work, Robbins argues that weakly institutionalized systems should result in lower public goods but higher parochial goods spending. In contrast, more institutionalized systems should result in more public goods spending as these systems try and appeal to broader swaths of the population. Through time-series cross-sectional analyses, with three different spending measures, the results support the stated hypotheses that institutionalized party systems significantly influence spending patterns.

Dr. Robbins’s research interests include political party systems, fiscal policymaking, political institutions and the politics of East Europe. His research is forthcoming at Comparative Politics and Party Politics. He earned his Bachelor’s (2002) and Master’s (2003) degrees from Eastern Illinois University and his PhD from Texas Tech University (2008). This is Dr. Robbins’s first year at Shepherd after serving as visiting assistant professor of Political Science at McMurry University last year.