Owning the issue agenda: Party strategies and vote choices in British elections

Green, Jane; Hobolt, Sara B.

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2008.02.003

Cited by 317 publications

(281 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

268

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The combination of ownership and saliency is emphasized both by Petrocik (1996) and by the earlier work of Budge and Farlie (1983). 6 Recent research also finds that the effect of issue ownership on vote choice is conditioned by the perceived salience of the issue in question (Belanger and Meguid, 2008;Green and Hobolt, 2008). Hence, our fourth hypothesis is that salient issue ownership for one of the parties in the party set will affect the choice between the parties in the set.…”

Section: Choice Between the Parties In The Setmentioning

confidence: 97%

Political values count but issue ownership decides? How stable and dynamic factors influence party set and vote choice in multiparty systems

Karlsen

Aardal

2014

International Political Science Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Choice Between the Parties In The Setmentioning

confidence: 97%

Political values count but issue ownership decides? How stable and dynamic factors influence party set and vote choice in multiparty systems

Karlsen

Aardal

2014

International Political Science Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…3 The theory proposes that the key processes informing party choice are ''comparative assessments of parties' managerial capabilities and their 2 For other authors, valence politics has been a conditional outcome of the adoption of ideologically convergent strategies by parties (for example, Green 2007;Green and Hobolt 2008). Here we focus only on the assumptions and empirical implications of the Clarke et al operationalization of valence.…”

Section: The Bes Valence Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-evaluating the Valence Model of Political Choice

Evans¹,

Chzhen²

2015

PSRM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

T he influential valence model of voting developed over the last decade by the British Election Study (BES) team assumes that party and leadership performance evaluations have a causal impact on party choice. An alternative perspective argues that such performance evaluations are instead the consequences of party choice. This article examines the analytical and empirical underpinnings of the BES valence model and compares it to the partydriven approach. To do so, it estimates cross-lagged structural equation models of the association between Labour Party preference and evaluations of the Labour government's performance during the 2005-10 British electoral cycle. It shows that party preference has a stronger effect on performance evaluations than vice versa; performance evaluations have no significant effect on party preference toward the end of the electoral cycle. The study also finds that, contrary to claims made concerning their merits as simplifying heuristics, performance assessments have no impact on short-term movements in party choice for less politically attentive voters. To a substantial degree, evaluations of party performance express-rather than explain-party choice, and would appear to have limited merit as simplifying heuristics.S tokes (1963, 1994) famously argued that competition between parties involves assessing policy performance and party competence in the delivery of agreed-upon goals. There is assumed to be a general consensus on the desirability of goals such as economic growth, the effective delivery of public services and the reduction of crime. Vote choice is based on which party or candidate is perceived to be the most competent to deliver these sorts of outcomes. This theory contrasts markedly with approaches to voting that emphasize differences in issues and/or ideological positions between parties and voters. In recent years, perceptions of party competence have become important explanations of political choices and electoral outcomes. Voters evaluate parties and politicians in terms of their competence and performance, and vote for those they think have delivered, or will deliver, valued outcomes.1 The significance of evaluating performance and competence for vote choice is now so embedded in our understanding of voting behavior that voter assessments of party competence on key issues are routinely included in election surveys. The American, British, Canadian, European and Irish election studies all now include questions on party issue competence (Wagner and Zeglovits forthcoming).A particular model of valence voting advocated by the current British Election Study (BES) team has recently become highly influential. Clarke et al. (2004Clarke et al. ( , 2009Clarke et al. ( , 2011 have instantiated an operationalization of valence voting that has reshaped understanding of British voting behavior in particular, but has also been assumed to have more general

show abstract

“…At the same time, stability in issue ownership is also emphasized (e.g., Egan 2013;Wright 2012). Alongside, issue ownership is widely used in studies of voting behavior (Green and Hobolt 2007;Meguid and Belanger 2008;van der Brug 2004) and party behavior (Spoon, Hobolt, and De Vries 2013;Meguid 2008;Dolezal et al 2013) as the predictor constant across time and identical across countries.…”

Section: The Disagreement On the Stability Of Issue Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Stable Is Political Parties’ Issue Ownership? A Cross-Time, Cross-National Analysis

Seeberg

2016

Political Studies

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on issue ownership is accelerating and so is its use in studies of voting and party behaviour. Yet we do not know how stable issue ownership is. Does it describe a solid, persistent association between a party and an issue in the eyes of the electorate, or does it describe a more fluid and fragile issue reputation of a party among the electorate? Theoretical and empirical work suggests both stability and variability in issue ownership. To get closer to an answer, this article presents and analyses unprecedented comprehensive data on issue ownership. The analysis identifies stability rather than change in issue ownership over time and similarity more than difference across countries, and therefore suggests that issue ownership is a general and long-term rather than a local and short-term phenomenon. The implications for how voters perceive parties are important.

show abstract

Owning the issue agenda: Party strategies and vote choices in British elections

Cited by 317 publications

References 34 publications

Political values count but issue ownership decides? How stable and dynamic factors influence party set and vote choice in multiparty systems

Political values count but issue ownership decides? How stable and dynamic factors influence party set and vote choice in multiparty systems

Re-evaluating the Valence Model of Political Choice

How Stable Is Political Parties’ Issue Ownership? A Cross-Time, Cross-National Analysis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About