The main research question in this chapter is to what extent and how voters’ perceptions of important issues affect the outcome of the election. The analyses clearly demonstrate that issue voting matters. If a voter thinks that a certain issue is salient, this has a considerable positive effect on the probability that he or she will vote for the party that is regarded as the ‘owner’ of the issue. Despite thelimitations of the measurements and data used, it is argued that issues do matter in modern elections. However, contrary to expectations based on modernisation theory, no secular increase in issue voting over time was found. The notion that policy preferences — or issues — have “replaced” social background as prime determinants of voting tends to overlook the fact that even the traditional models of voting behaviour were not devoid of political context. In this perspective, the analysis in this chapter confirms that election campaigns are still fought over issues that both politicians and voters perceive as important. If a party owns an issue, it has far better chances in an upcoming election, only if the voters — and the media — agree with the party that this particular issue deserves particular attention.

Data on individual variations from one election to the next is fundamental in the study of political behaviour, and should, ideally, be collected through panel studies in which the same people are interviewed at two or more or elections. This method is, however, costly and time consuming, and most analyses of this type are therefore based on recall data, in which the voters report their choices in the current election and also in previous elections. The accuracy of recall data is discussed, based on data from the Norwegian Programme of Election Research in the period 1977–97. Analyses show that one must expect, using this type of data, that about one in four voters will give incorrect information about their voting behaviour at the previous election. Erroneous recall of previous voting can be explained by variations in the voters’ affiliation to the parties. Whereas stable voters who remain with the same party normally report their voting correctly, erroneous recall varies around 40 percent for party changers and rises to 70 percent among previous non‐voters. There is, however, no uniform underlying pattern in erroneous recall during different periods, which implies that it is difficult to predict exactly how erroneous recall will affect the accuracy of recall data in one particular election.

This article addresses the relationship between latent predispositions and political campaign communication. We propose that political values are decisive in a voter's calculation of which parties she may consider voting for, constituting his or her party set. Furthermore, we argue that the theory of issue ownership contributes to explaining the choice of party within the party set. In addition to investigating salient single issue ownership, we relate issue ownership to parties presenting voters with comprehensive policy packages and study the effect of cumulative issue ownership, that is, issue ownership in several policy areas. We test the hypotheses using data from the Norwegian Election Study of 2009. Our findings support our expectations: stable elements affect which parties are included in the party set, and issue ownership affect the choice between the parties within the set. However, political values also affect the choice between parties in the set. Finally, our data show that cumulative issue ownership has a greater effect than issue ownership of one particularly salient issue. The final section of the article discusses the implications for the theory of issue ownership in general and the model presented in this article in particular.

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Although the Storting election of 11 September 2017 reduced the number of seats backing the incumbent conservative government, it still gave the two governing parties and their supporting centre-right parties a parliamentary majority. Thus, Prime Minister Solberg's premiership will continue after the election. In the previous period, the government could secure a parliamentary majority with either of the two centrist parties; the Liberal Party or the Christian Democrats. After the 2017 election, they will need the support of both parties to secure a majority, unless they can get help from one or more of the centre-left opposition parties. When Solberg formed her government back in 2013, the populist right-wing Progress Party entered government for the first time. Even Progress Party leaders feared that they would lose support from anti-establishment voters. Poor turnout at the 2015 local election did not bode well. 1 However, the Progress Party did far better in the 2017 national elections and lost only 1.1 percentage points and two seats compared with the 2013 election. A major success factor for the Progress Party was the attention given to immigration issues during the election campaign (see below). At the previous election, in 2013, the Green Party won a seat for the first time, increasing the number of parties in parliament from seven to eight. 2 In 2017, the far-left Red Party increased the number of parties from eight to nine. 3 Despite the re-election of the incumbent government, the election signalled a shift to the left, even to the left of the Labour Party. 4 Background to the election In Norway, the electoral periods are fixed at four-year intervals. There are no provisions for dissolving the parliament and calling for new elections between ordinary elections. Elections are held on the second Monday in September. Norway has a proportional system with 19 constituencies, which are also the regional administrative units (counties or fylker). The geographical distribution CONTACT Bernt aardal