Partisan governments play an important role in the elaboration of macroeconomic policies of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries: they manage fiscal policy and coordinate with a Central Bank that conducts monetary policy. Ideology is a crucial parameter of the ruling coalition. This study focuses on the infl uence of the ideology of the ruling coalition on macroeconomic policies of the OECD countries. Using statistical methods, the analysis examines the relationship between the “rightism” of the ruling coalition and such characteristics of budgetary policy as budget balancing, state expenditures and tax collection. The fi ndings show that the infl uence of ideology is determined by a set of social and economic factors, so the nature of the infl uence that ideology wields may work in diff erent directions depending on the conditions.