Office and Policy at the Expense of Votes: Plaid Cymru and the One Wales Government

Abstract

This paper will examine Plaid Cymru's experience in government from 2007 to 2011. Drawing on literature on autonomist parties, parties in government for the first time, and Strøm and Müller's policy/office/votes framework, the paper examines where strategic 'trade-offs’ were made and what the consequences of such trade-offs were. The paper takes a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interview and documentary data. The paper finds that Plaid Cymru valued the policy-seeking potential of office at the expense of vote-seeking ones because of the importance of 'autonomist' goals, namely the 2011 referendum which saw primary law-making powers granted to the Welsh Assembly. Furthermore, the experience of governmental office exposed organizational vulnerabilities in the party's leadership structures which undermined the ability to construct an effective vote-winning strategy at the 2011 Welsh election, where the party lost four seats.

Key Words:

• Plaid Cymru
• devolution
• autonomist parties
• government
• party elites
• political parties

Notes

1 From this point, ‘Plaid Cymru’ will be referred to as ‘Plaid’.

2 There are a number of names given to this party family, such as autonomist, regionalist, stateless nationalist and regionalist, amongst others. This paper will use ‘autonomist’ for ease.

3 For an explanation of the powers of the NAW and an overview of the developments in Welsh devolution since 1999, see Mitchell (2009), Shipton (2011), Shortridge (2010), Trench (2007) and Wyn Jones and Scully (2012).

4 The interviewees used in this paper were collected as part of the fieldwork for the author's PhD thesis. Although the interviewees were granted anonymity, their role within the party is stated in the relevant reference as either an Assembly Member, a party officer (anyone who is employed or consulted by the party and holds a non-elected position) or a local authority Councillor (Cllr). All interviews are also dated, although multiple interviews were conducted on most days of the fieldwork. Of the 20 interviewees collected during the fieldwork, 15 are used in this paper.

5 The result of the vote to form a coalition with Labour was 225 ‘For’ and 18 ‘Against’.

6 Research by Browne and Feste (1975) found that parties do not view ministerial posts equally and certain parties will place emphasis on filling certain posts. Knowing the ideology of a party increases the chances of predicting the type of portfolios it will place emphasis on. For example, agrarian parties receive agricultural affairs 72% of the time (Browne and Feste, 1975: 546).