Cinderella and her ugly sisters: the mainstream and extreme right in Europe's bipolarising party systems

Issue Engagement in Election Campaigns The Impact of Electoral Incentives and Organizational Constraints

“…First, parties do not want to be seen as ignoring issues that are of public concern and the subject of extensive media coverage (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994). Second, parties have incentives to take up or 'copy' issues raised by rival parties if these issues are promising vote-winners (Bale 2003, Sulkin 2005, Green-Pedersen 2007, Meguid 2008, Spoon et al 2014. Third, addressing an issue gives parties some influence over how an issue is framed in the public debate (Jerit 2008, Nadeau et al 2010).…”

“…This means that raising the salience of an issue can be an offensive or a defensive strategy: offensive, if the rival parties engage over an issue in the hopes of stealing their respective voters; defensive, if the parties do so in order to prevent their own voters from defecting (Bale 2003, Green-Pedersen 2007, Spoon et al 2014. In either case, parties should talk about the same issues most if they are close to each other in terms of issue positions.…”

“…First, parties will want to talk about those issues where the political benefits of issue engagement with rivals are greatest. Here, we highlight the incentive for parties to talk about the same issues as parties that represent the most important electoral threat (Bale 2003, Spoon et al 2014. Thus, issue engagement should be more likely when parties share similar policy goals and address similar voter groups.…”

Explaining the Electoral Performance of Populist Parties: The Netherlands as a Case Study

“…What is more, as the Freedom Party is not officially part of the government it remains to be seen whether a 'black-widow effect' will materialise (Bale 2003). This happens when mainstream parties gobble up the electoral support of the radical junior coalition partner by copying its policies.…”

“…Apart from more substantive policy-related motivations, a vote for a populist party typically is an expression of dissatisfaction with the political establishment (see Bélanger & Aarts, 2006). Existing parties, however, may hamper the development of populist parties by successfully seizing the ownership of the issues addressed by the populists (see Bale, 2003;Meguid, 2008).…”