Avoiding or Engaging Problems? Issue Ownership, Problem Indicators, and Party Issue Competition

TY - JOUR

T1 - Avoiding or Engaging Problems? Issue Ownership, Problem Indicators, and Party Issue Competition

AU - Kristensen, Thomas Artmann

AU - Green-Pedersen, Christoffer

AU - Mortensen, Peter Bjerre

AU - Seeberg, Henrik Bech

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - Issue competition theories posit that political parties have little incentive to emphasize the same issues, because they mostly benefit from emphasizing issues where they are viewed as more competent. In contrast, a number of empirical studies find considerable overlap in parties’ issues emphasis. Aiming to bridge this peculiar gap, this paper suggests that the development of exogenous problems is one factor that constrains parties’ incentives to talk past each other. Using comprehensive data on party attention to ten issues across six West European countries from approximately 1980 and onwards, the analysis shows that problems moderate the relationship between parties’ issue reputations and their issue emphases. When problems are moderate, parties selectively focus on different issues, but when problems become severe, parties across the board attend to an issue. That even includes parties that do not own the issue. These results have reassuring implications for parties’ responsiveness to societal problems that negatively affect the welfare of citizens.

AB - Issue competition theories posit that political parties have little incentive to emphasize the same issues, because they mostly benefit from emphasizing issues where they are viewed as more competent. In contrast, a number of empirical studies find considerable overlap in parties’ issues emphasis. Aiming to bridge this peculiar gap, this paper suggests that the development of exogenous problems is one factor that constrains parties’ incentives to talk past each other. Using comprehensive data on party attention to ten issues across six West European countries from approximately 1980 and onwards, the analysis shows that problems moderate the relationship between parties’ issue reputations and their issue emphases. When problems are moderate, parties selectively focus on different issues, but when problems become severe, parties across the board attend to an issue. That even includes parties that do not own the issue. These results have reassuring implications for parties’ responsiveness to societal problems that negatively affect the welfare of citizens.

KW - Issue ownership

KW - issue overlap

KW - party competition

KW - problem indicators

KW - problems

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140207912&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/13501763.2022.2135754

DO - 10.1080/13501763.2022.2135754

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1350-1763

VL - 30

SP - 2854

EP - 2885

JO - Journal of European Public Policy

JF - Journal of European Public Policy

IS - 12

ER -