When left or right do not matter: Ideology and spending in Central and Eastern Europe

I reassess the argument by Tavits and Letki (2009) that in Eastern Europe in the 1990s and 2000s left-leaning governments were less likely to spend than right-leaning governments. I argue that the findings are most likely driven by time bias in their manifesto-based measurement of ideology. Starting in the mid-nineties, governments became artificially leftist, thus, the robustness of the relationship proposed by Tavits and Letki may be questioned. When adjusted for time bias, ideology does not influence spending in Eastern Europe. These findings have important consequences on the established literature linking ideology and spending. The findings also suggest that although manifesto-based measures of ideology have become widely used in time-series analyses, ideology scores at different times may not be comparable without adjustments