METHODOLOGY on the evaluation of the accountability of election promises (updated)

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Our analysis involves counting specific promises in parties’ campaign programs and then determining how many of them have been implemented by the party that has been elected to office in the last 4 elections (2009-2021).

Also, starting from the quantitative part estimated in value according to the type of promise, we compare it with the weight it holds in the state budget, confirming or not whether it is achievable starting from the weight that each of the sectoral promises holds in the budget in 15 the last few years.

With this type of analysis, there is a risk that subjective interpretation of what constitutes a promise and what action is required to declare that a promise has been kept can undermine the reliability and validity of the data. Therefore, it is important to clarify where we find election promises and what qualifies as a promise.

The documentary sources from which the promises are taken are the programs of the parties that come out during the election campaigns.

There are a number of documents containing party promises: speeches by party leaders, party pamphlets and leaflets, newspaper advertisements, speeches at party assemblies, which are not always comparable or highly representative of official party policy.

The use of party programs has the advantage of providing a well-defined and coherent body of officially sanctioned party documents.

It also has the disadvantage of ignoring election promises that are not in the party’s program

In addition to the institutional structure in which promises are made, we examine whether characteristics of the promises themselves affect their likelihood of fulfillment.
All things being equal, given the growth of big government in general, it is expected that promises to maintain the status-quo are easier to keep than promises to change policy.

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Description

Political party programs communicate the values ​​and concerns of a political party, as well as the ideas, policies it advocates, and the demands the party wants to implement. Party programs play a key role in democratic political systems as they shape voters’ decisions during elections, serve as benchmarks to evaluate the performance of political parties, set policy agendas, and propose solutions to address societal challenges.

Moreover, they structure interactions between political forces and can significantly shape government policy (Van der Does and Statsch, 2016).

In the last decade, the leadership crisis as an accompanying part of the ongoing political crisis in the Albanian political environment has strengthened the importance of the analysis of election promises both from a quantitative and qualitative perspective.

Meanwhile, this point of view alone cannot demonstrate the inflation of election promises in the political campaigns of the parties in Albania, which is on average at the level of up to 60% unfulfilled or not included in the governing programs in cases where the parties have won the elections and received the mandate to govern.

Democratic culture and the cultivation of a leadership based on responsibility, through transparency and accountability regarding the level of fulfillment of election promises must after over 3 decades of coexistence with the political order based on the liberal principles of open and inclusive governance produce significant differences in the operationalization of responsible governance based on these principles.

The fulfillment of election commitments is at the heart of democratic accountability.

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