Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T12:31:39.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Issue Yield: A Model of Party Strategy in Multidimensional Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2014

LORENZO DE SIO  and
TILL WEBER
LORENZO DE SIO*
Affiliation:
LUISS Guido Carli University – Rome
TILL WEBER*
Affiliation:
Baruch College, City University of New York
*
Lorenzo De Sio is Assistant Professor, LUISS Guido Carli University, Department of Political Science, Viale Romania 32, 00197 Rome, Italy (ldesio@luiss.it).
Till Weber is Assistant Professor, Baruch College, City University of New York, Department of Political Science, 1 Bernard Baruch Way, Box B5-280, New York, NY 10010 (till.weber@baruch.cuny.edu).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 108 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 870 - 885
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, James. 1998. “Partisan Voting and Multiparty Spatial Competition: The Pressure for Responsible Parties.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 10 (1): 5–31.Google Scholar
Adams, James, Ezrow, Lawrence, and Somer-Topcu, Zeynep. 2011. “Is Anybody Listening? Evidence that Voters Do Not Respond to European Parties’ Policy Statements during Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2): 370–82.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Snyder, James M.. 2000. “Valence Politics and Equilibrium in Spatial Election Models.” Public Choice 103 (3): 327–36.Google Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth J. 1951. Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bélanger, Éric, and Meguid, Bonnie M.. 2008. “Issue Salience, Issue Ownership, and Issue-Based Vote Choice.” Electoral Studies 27 (3): 477–91.Google Scholar
Brambor, Thomas, Clark, William Roberts, and Golder, Matt. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analysis.” Political Analysis 14 (1): 63–82.Google Scholar
Budge, Ian, and Farlie, Dennis J.. 1983. Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-three Democracies. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward G., and Stimson, James A.. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, Harold D., Sanders, David, Stewart, Marianne C., and Whiteley, Paul. 2009. Performance Politics and the British Voter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto A., and Hinich, Melvin J.. 1966. “A Mathematical Model of Policy Formation in a Democratic Society.” In Mathematical Applications in Political Science, ed. Bernd, Joseph. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, 175–205.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Duncan, Otis D., and Davis, Beverly. 1953. “An Alternative to Ecological Correlation.” American Sociological Review 18 (6): 665–66.Google Scholar
Ezrow, Lawrence. 2010. Linking Citizens and Parties: How Electoral Systems Matter for Electoral Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feld, Scott L., and Grofman, Bernard. 1991. “Incumbency Advantage, Voter Loyalty and the Benefit of the Doubt.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 3 (2): 115–37.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Jane, and Hobolt, Sara B.. 2008. “Owning the Issue Agenda: Party Strategies and Vote Choices in British Elections.” Electoral Studies 27 (3): 460–76.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard. 2004. “Downs and Two-party Convergence.” Annual Review of Political Science (7): 25–46.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard. 2010. “Constraints on the Turnout Gap between High and Low Knowledge (or Income) Voters: Combining the Duncan-Davis Method of Bounds with the Taagepera Method of Bounds.” Electoral Studies 29 (4): 673–77.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Kinder, Donald R.. 1987. News that Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kam, Cindy D., and Franzese, Robert J. Jr. 2007. Modeling and Interpreting Interactive Hypotheses in Regression Analysis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert P. 1989. The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Laakso, Markku, and Taagepera, Rein. 1979. “The Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12 (1): 3–27.Google Scholar
Laver, Michael, and Sergenti, Ernest. 2011. Party Competition: An Agent-based Model. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lewin, Kurt. 1935. “The Conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean Modes of Thought in Contemporary Psychology.” In A Dynamic Theory of Personality, ed. Lewin, Kurt. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1–42.Google Scholar
Marks, Gary, Hooghe, Liesbet, Steenbergen, Marco R., and Bakker, Ryan. 2007. “Crossvalidating Data on Party Positioning on European Integration.” Electoral Studies 26 (1): 23–38.Google Scholar
Meguid, Bonnie M. 2008. Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Wolfgang C., and Strøm, Kaare. 1999. Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D. 1986. “Covering, Dominance, and Institution-Free Properties of Social Choice.” American Journal of Political Science 30 (2): 283–314.Google Scholar
Petrocik, John R. 1996. “Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (3): 825–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plott, Charles R. 1967. “A Notion of Equilibrium and Its Possibility under Majority Rule.” American Economic Review 57 (4): 787–806.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, and Sprague, John D.. 1986. Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, George, and Macdonald, Stuart Elaine. 1989. “A Directional Theory of Issue Voting.” American Political Science Review 83 (1): 93–121.Google Scholar
Reif, Karlheinz, and Schmitt, Hermann. 1980. “Nine Second-Order National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results.” European Journal of Political Research 8 (1): 3–44.Google Scholar
Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Robertson, David B. 1976. A Theory of Party Competition. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rovny, Jan. 2012. “Who Emphasizes and Who Blurs? Party Strategies in Multidimensional Competition.” European Union Politics 13 (2): 269–92.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Schofield, Norman, and Sened, Itai. 2006. Multiparty Democracy: Elections and Legislative Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, Donald E. 1963. “Spatial Models of Party Competition.” American Political Science Review 57 (2): 368–77.Google Scholar
Stokes, Donald E. 1992. “Valence Politics.” In Electoral Politics, ed. Kavanagh, Dennis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 141–62.Google Scholar
Van der Brug, Wouter. 2004. “Issue Ownership and Party Choice.” Electoral Studies 23 (2): 209–33.Google Scholar
Van der Brug, Wouter, Franklin, Mark N., and Tóka, Gábor. 2008. “One Electorate or Many? Differences in Party Preference Formation between New and Established European Democracies.” Electoral Studies 27 (4): 589–600.Google Scholar
Wagner, Markus. 2012a. “When Do Parties Emphasise Extreme Positions? How Strategic Incentives for Policy Differentiation Influence Issue Importance.” European Journal of Political Research 51 (1): 64–88.Google Scholar
Wagner, Markus. 2012b. “Defining and Measuring Niche Parties.” Party Politics 18 (6): 845–64.Google Scholar
Wittman, Donald A. 1973. “Parties as Utility Maximizers.” American Political Science Review 67 (2): 490–98.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

De Sio and Weber Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download De Sio and Weber Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 174.6 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.