Members of the ResponsiveGov team attended the ECPR General Conference in Montreal, Canada, 26-29 September 2015. Lead investigator Prof. Laura Morales served as Section Chair of Section 46: Public Opinion, Social Movements, Interest Groups, Political Parties and Policy Change. Co-Chaired by Dr. Christine Arnold from the University of Maastricht, the section built upon a highly successful ResponsiveGov workshop organized at the University of Leicester last year with the support of the the members of MOVEOUT, the international network on the study of social movement outcomes.
Along with Simon Persico (Sciences Po Paris) and Isabelle Guinaudeau (Sciences Po Bordeaux), Prof. Morales also presented the paper ‘The Conditions of Parties’ Policy Differentiation. The Case of Copyright Protection in Five European Countries’. Using new data from ResponsiveGov and the Comparative Agendas Project, the paper examines under what conditions political parties’ policy pledges are most likely to be fulfilled.