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Manifestos and public opinion: testing the relevance of spatial models to explain salience choices

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

According to Downs’ spatial model of electoral competition, in two-party systems, political parties move closer to the median voter’s preferences, while in multiparty democracies, party platforms target their own electorate. This model has been used to predict parties’ policy positions, but never to explain their salience choices. Based on data from political manifestos and public opinion in 23 European countries from 2004 to 2012, we show that the Downsian model can be applied to salience strategies when issue attention is different among left-wing and right-wing voters. In line with the spatial theory, parties choose to place emphasis on different issues in their manifestos depending on the importance attached to each of these issues by either the median voter or their partisan voters, depending on their size and the characteristics of the party system.

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Notes

  1. Political manifestos are more appropriate than public policies to test the spatial model for two reasons. First, manifestos are more manipulable, i.e., it is easier to adjust platforms than policies in response to changes in public opinion. Second, manifestos are equally available for each citizen at the national level, whereas policies may be targeted at specific interest groups and therefore lack visibility for the whole public. This choice is far from new: an abundant literature has already tested the spatial model with political manifestos.

  2. The list includes the following issues: economic situation, crime, inflation, taxation, unemployment, terrorism, foreign affairs, housing, immigration, healthcare system, educational system, pensions, environment, and energy.

  3. In some cases, we collected data on public opinion only 4 months before the election (Spain, 2004; Poland, 2007; Denmark, 2005; Portugal, 2005) because the desirable slot was not available.

  4. On the manifestos database, some of them are easily traceable: Environment is coded 501 (Environmental Protection); Crime: 605 (Law and Order); Education: 506 (Education Expansion); and 507 (Education Limitation); Immigration: 607 and 608 (Multiculturalism positive and negative). Healthcare and pensions are included in the general categories 504 and 505 (Welfare State Expansion and Limitation). Foreign Policy includes all codes in Domain 1 (External Relations), except those about the European Union (108 and 110). Finally, the Economy includes 401 (Free enterprise), 402 (Incentives), 403 (Market regulation), 404 (Economic planning), 406 and 407 (protectionism positive and negative), 408 (economic goals), 409 (Keynesian Demand Management), 410 (productivity), 412 (Controlled economy), and 413 (Nationalization).

  5. Note that this operationalization implies taking 13 small parties out of the analysis due to missing information.

  6. Results with different thresholds are provided by the authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Isabelle Guinaudeau, Sylvain Brouard and Anna Jeannesson for their insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Grenoble-Alpes, Sciences Po Grenoble, PACTE, 1030 Avenue Centrale, 38400, Saint-Martin-d’Hères, France

    Raul Magni-Berton

  2. Sciences Po Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim, 11 Allée Ausone, 33600, Pessac, France

    Sophie Panel

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  1. Raul Magni-Berton
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  2. Sophie Panel
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Correspondence to Raul Magni-Berton.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 6 Countries, elections and effective number of parties (2004–2012)
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Appendix 2

Table 7 Alternative estimations of attention paid to all issues in political manifestos (beta coefficients)
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Magni-Berton, R., Panel, S. Manifestos and public opinion: testing the relevance of spatial models to explain salience choices. Comp Eur Polit 16, 783–804 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-017-0101-2

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