Do Politicians Keep Their Promises?

Welcome Jonathan Bernstein Readers! And thank you, Jonathan Bernstein, for the link. I really appreciate it.

Jonathan Bernstein (here's the link to his blog):

Politicians make lots of promises when they campaign -- some are on matters of public policy, some on process, and some on style. Whatever voters may think, the evidence is pretty good that pols themselves take these things pretty seriously. There is evidence (yup, from political scientists, but I'm afraid I don't have a citation handy) that pols tend to keep their promises...

Tracy Sulkin, associate professor of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is currently at work on a book about congressional promise-making and promise-keeping. You may want to keep an eye out for it if you’re interested in the question of whether politicians follow up on their campaign promises when they’re in office. So, do they? Do politicians keep their promises? Well, legislators do. Here's the evidence: In a study I read a couple of weeks back titled "Promises Made and Promises Kept," Sulkin concludes (if I read the piece correctly) based on her findings that most candidates who make promises tend to keep them once they're in office. You can read the piece in Congress Reconsidered -- really good book.

Now, on “Whatever voters may think”: The popular view among the public is that legislators don’t follow through on their campaign promises when they’re in office. Where's the evidence? Tracy Sulkin cites the following evidence in the aforementioned study: the 2006 Congressional Elections Study, the 2004 National Annenberg Election Study and the 1999 Project on Campaign Conduct.