scholarly journals Issue Yield and Party Strategy in Multiparty Competition

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (9) ◽  
pp. 1208-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo De Sio ◽  
Andrea De Angelis ◽  
Vincenzo Emanuele
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Time Sequence ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Yield Model ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Systematic Testing ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
Pilot Implementation ◽  
Issue Emphasis

The issue yield model introduced a theory of the herestethic use of policy issues as strategic resources in multidimensional party competition. We extend the model by systematically addressing the specificities of issue yield dynamics in multiparty systems, with special regard to parties’ issue yield rankings (relative position) and issue yield heterogeneity (differentiation) on each issue. Second, we introduce a novel research design for original data collection that allows for a more systematic testing of the model, by featuring (a) a large number of policy issues, (b) the use of Twitter content for coding parties’ issue emphasis, and (c) an appropriate time sequence for measuring issue yield configurations and issue emphasis. We finally present findings from a pilot implementation of such design, performed on the occasion of the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy. Findings confirm the soundness of the design and provide support for the newly introduced hypotheses about multiparty competition.

scholarly journals Issue yield and party strategy in multi-party competition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo De Sio ◽  
Andrea De Angelis ◽  
Vincenzo Emanuele
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Time Sequence ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Yield Model ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Systematic Testing ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
Pilot Implementation ◽  
Issue Emphasis

The issue yield model introduced a theory of the herestethic use of policy issues as strategic resources in multidimensional party competition. We extend the model by systematically addressing the specificities of issue yield dynamics in multiparty systems, with special regard to parties’ issue yield rankings (relative position) and issue yield heterogeneity (differentiation) on each issue. Second, we introduce a novel research design for original data collection that allows for a more systematic testing of the model, by featuring (a) a large number of policy issues, (b) the use of Twitter content for coding parties’ issue emphasis, and (c) an appropriate time sequence for measuring issue yield configurations and issue emphasis. We finally present findings from a pilot implementation of such design, performed on the occasion of the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy. Findings confirm the soundness of the design and provide support for the newly introduced hypotheses about multiparty competition.

Issue Yield: A Model of Party Strategy in Multidimensional Space

2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 870-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORENZO DE SIO ◽  
TILL WEBER
Keyword(s):  
Dimensional Structure ◽  
Multidimensional Space ◽  
Multidimensional Model ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Simple Index ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
European Election ◽  
Issue Emphasis

Parties in pluralist democracies face numerous contentious issues, but most models of electoral competition assume a simple, often one-dimensional structure. We develop a new, inherently multidimensional model of party strategy in which parties compete by emphasizing policy issues. Issue emphasis is informed by two distinct goals: mobilizing the party's core voters and broadening the support base. Accommodating these goals dissolves the position-valence dichotomy through a focus on policies that unite the party internally while also attracting support from the electorate at large. We define issue yield as the capacity of an issue to reconcile these criteria, and then operationalize it as a simple index. Results of multilevel regressions combining population survey data and party manifesto scores from the 2009 European Election Study demonstrate that issue yield governs party strategy across different political contexts.

scholarly journals Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition

2021 ◽  
pp. 146511652110274
Author(s):  
Jelle Koedam
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
Political Outcome ◽  
Western European

In a multidimensional environment, parties may have compelling incentives to obscure their preferences on select issues. This study contributes to a growing literature on position blurring by demonstrating how party leaders purposively create uncertainty about where their party stands on the issue of European integration. By doing so, it theoretically and empirically disentangles the cause of position blurring—parties’ strategic behavior—from its intended political outcome. The analysis of survey and manifesto data across 14 Western European countries (1999–2019) confirms that three distinct strategies—avoidance, ambiguity, and alternation—all increase expert uncertainty about a party's position. This finding is then unpacked by examining for whom avoidance is particularly effective. This study has important implications for our understanding of party strategy, democratic representation, and political accountability.

Strategic issue emphasis in parties’ election campaign statements

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881986409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Baumann ◽  
Marc Debus ◽  
Martin Gross
Keyword(s):  
Election Campaign ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Legislative Period ◽  
Electoral Campaign ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
Strategic Issue ◽  
Unemployment Policy ◽  
Issue Emphasis

Parties should develop a consistent issue profile during an electoral campaign. Yet, manifestos, which form the baseline for a party’s programmatic goals in the upcoming legislative period, are usually published months before Election Day. We argue that parties must emphasize policy issues that are of key relevance to their likely voters in the last weeks of the election campaign, in which an increasing share of citizens make up their minds in terms of which party they will choose. To test this notion empirically, we draw on a novel data set that covers information on party representatives’ statements made during the final weeks of an election campaign in nine European countries. Focusing on the campaign messages of social democratic and socialist parties, we find that these parties indeed intensify their emphasis of unemployment policy, which is a salient issue for their core voter clienteles, particularly in times of economic hardship.

Political parties and think tanks: policy analysis oriented toward office-seeking

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilo Argibay ◽  
Rafaël Cos ◽  
Anne-Cécile Douillet
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Marked Effect ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Membership ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Internal Production

This chapter examines the role played by political parties and think tanks in the development of policy analysis in France. It shows how party-based policy analysis is interwoven with inter and intra-party competition related to the objective of seeking office. Indeed, even though policy seeking activities do not look central in the functioning of French political parties, developments in party rationales, like those in the profile of governing parties’ elites, are favourable to intensifying interest in policy issues. Political parties’ professionalization nonetheless appears to have a marked effect on their internal production of public policy expertise: party membership is marginalised while the electoral issues and internal competition have a structuring impact. Lastly, analysis of public policy expertise production shows that it is mainly done in the vicinity of party organisations, due to the significant recourse to experts outside of parties and the role of think tanks.

The Mass Political Economy of Capital Controls

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (11) ◽  
pp. 1575-1609 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Steinberg ◽  
Stephen C. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Financial Market ◽  
Financial Regulation ◽  
Capital Controls ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Capital Outflows ◽  
International Financial Regulation

This article examines mass public opinion toward international financial-market regulations, known as “capital controls.” Conventional wisdom maintains that most voters do not pay attention to or care about capital controls, but no previous studies have directly evaluated this claim. We argue that capital controls are likely to become a publicly salient issue under some conditions—specifically, when economically unstable countries reimpose regulations on capital outflows. Original data from two surveys fielded in Argentina support this argument. We show that most citizens are knowledgeable about capital controls, many consider it an important issue, individuals’ preferences reflect their economic self-interest, and attitudes toward capital controls influenced vote choice in a presidential election. These results, along with illustrative evidence from four other cases, indicate that ostensibly complex policy issues such as international financial regulation can become electorally salient under some conditions.

Validating and Improving Voting Advice Applications: Estimating Party Positions Using Candidate Surveys

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Andreadis ◽  
Heiko Giebler
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voting Advice Applications

AbstractLocating political parties correctly regarding different policy issues is not just crucial for research on parties, party competition, and many similar fields but also for the electorate. For the latter, it has become more and more important as the relevance of voting advice applications (VAA) has increased and as their main usage is to compare citizens’ policy preferences to the offer of political parties. However, if party positions are not adequately assigned, citizens are provided with suboptimal information which decreases the citizens’ capacities to make rational electoral decision. VAA designers follow different approaches to determining party positions. In this paper, we look beyond most common sources like electoral manifestos and expert judgments by using surveys of electoral candidates to validate and improve VAAs. We argue that by using positions derived from candidate surveys we get the information by the source itself, but at the same time we overcome most of the disadvantages of the other methods. Using data for the 2014 European Parliament election both in Greece and Germany, we show that while positions taken from the VAAs and from the candidate surveys do match more often than not, we also find substantive differences and even opposing positions. Moreover, these occasional differences have already rather severe consequences looking at calculated overlaps between citizens and parties as well as representations of the political competition space and party system polarization. These differences seem to be more pronounced in Greece. We conclude that candidate surveys are indeed a valid additional source to validate and improve VAAs.

Snakes in a tunnel? Parties, mandates, and agendas

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Emiliano Grossman ◽  
Isabelle Guinaudeau
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Issue Emphasis

This chapter presents a general theoretical framework to analyse party competition and its effects on policymaking. There are two perspectives: that parties still matter for policymaking despite signs of decline and that parties are driven by instrumental considerations and will do what it takes to get elected. This chapter adopts an intermediary perspective, arguing that campaign priorities not only reflect partisan preferences, but also respond to rival parties’ campaigns. This leads to an important common ground across different parties regarding their issue emphasis, i.e. the ‘tunnel’ of attention. Moving away from the heart of the tunnel is possible, but potentially costly. Post election, the victorious party will deliver on its programme priorities not least because of the pressure of junior coalition partners and the opposition. The tunnel of attention thus constrains party competition, but triggers mandate implementation.

scholarly journals When Voters and Parties Agree: Valence Issues and Party Competition

2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Green
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Spatial Models ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
Limited Application

There has been much talk of valence, consensus or competence politics but little theoretical explanation or empirical investigation of how this has arisen. In this article I argue that British political competition has become competence-based because the major parties and the electorate have converged on the dominant left–right dimension of British voting behaviour. As a result, commonly cited core vote explanations for party polarisation have only limited application. The electorate has converged on left–right issues, narrowing the policy space and the available positional strategies of political parties. A different pattern is found for the issue of Europe, and this is interpreted in light of possible causal mechanisms. The article offers a formal model for a rise in valence politics as parties and voters converge, and the implications are discussed for theories of party competition. I argue in favour of competence and salience-based theories of party strategy in place of a reliance on traditional spatial models.

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