Rejuvenating a tainted market oriented government's product : a comparative perspective

Abstract

Market-oriented political parties are fundamentally based on the principle that they mirror the dominant public consensus as much as realistically possible in order to gain or retain office. Despite this, long serving market-oriented governments still suffer from the same degenerative tendencies that have spoiled the public's perception of many long serving governments over the last fifty to sixty years. As a result, many of these government's, and in particular their leaders, have not lasted longer than eight or nine years in office. So, through comparative analysis of how two long serving market-oriented governments attempted to deal with their most obvious degenerative tendencies, this thesis sets out to see if and how a long serving market-oriented governing party can rejuvenate their product after more than seven years in office. The results of the analysis do suggest that long serving market-oriented governments can halt and reverse the growing public dissatisfaction for their product that inevitably occurs over time. However, due to variables external and uncontrollable to the party, this may not lead to further election victories. While this answer is not as conclusive as would be desirable, by outlining new strategies these governments may use to combat the problem noted, the results of this thesis do advance research in the field of product rejuvenation for governments that entered office under a market-orientation.