This article assesses party effects on the performance of public services. A policy-seeking model, hypothesizing that left and right party control affects performance, and an instrumental model, where all parties strive to raise performance, are presented. The framework also suggests a mixed model in which party effects are contingent on party competition, with parties raising performance as increasing party competition places their control of government at increasing risk. These models are

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... ed against panel data on English local governments' party control and public service performance. The results question the traditional account of left and right parties, showing a positive relationship between rightwing party control and performance that is contingent on a sufficiently high level of party competition. The findings suggest left-right models should be reframed for the contemporary context. Advocates of the traditional view of party government argue that political parties matter for public policy because different parties in government seek to realize their policy preferences and govern accordingly. Partly for these reasons, scholars have paid considerable attention to the effects of differences between parties as arrayed on a left-right dimension. The main finding from this literature is that parties of the left -at the national level -tend to spend more on social and related policies than do parties of the right. 1