38
c) When parties lack sufficient means of control to coerce presidents to repay and the
expected electoral returns (i.e. coattails) from the policy for which executives ask their
parties’ support are sufficiently large for parties so that they find it worth helping their
executive even if parties are not fully reciprocated by the spoils from office.
2. Presidents will not get their parties’ support on either one of two scenarios:
a) When the policy for which presidents ask their parties help is highly unpopular and
presidents cannot credibly commit to repay their parties.
b) When the policy for which presidents ask their parties endorsement is so costly for
parties to approve—because it is unpopular and/or it is deemed to fail in parties’
view—that the approval costs surpass the sum of expected coattails and the spoils
presidents could have provided the party as compensation.
3. In scenarios in which presidents and their parties’ interests diverge, how partisan
presidents’ policies are—thus, how reliable and responsible parties are—varies as a
function of parties’ control over the choices of their executives.
a) The best scenario for parties is at the collaboration equilibrium. Since parties have
sufficient means of control over their presidents in this setting, we should expect that
presidents’ choices reflect their parties’ preferences in two ways. First, the actions by
which presidents pay back their parties’ support should strongly reflect parties’
preferences. Second, since at this node presidents’ policies result from these two
actors’ bargaining, we should expect that presidents incorporate to some degree their
parties’ preferences.
b) At the party-as-hostage equilibrium the scenario is blurring for partisan policies. Since
parties have few means of control over their presidents, they have less say in the kind
Convention