“Our Issue Positions are Strong, and Our Opponents’ Valence is Weak”: An Analysis of Parties' Campaign Strategies in Ten Western European Democracies

Bjarnøe, Camilla; Adams, James; Boydstun, Amber E.

doi:10.1017/s0007123421000715

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 60 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In varying degrees, these results and methodology are generalizable to other contexts, as shown by Kurella (2019) and Vasilopoulou and Zur (2022). Our conclusions also pertain to recent empirical research analyzing parties' strategic choices over whether to campaign by emphasizing their non-policy attributes versus their policy positions and priorities (Bjarnøe et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 71%

How much does issue salience matter? A model with applications to the UK elections

ADAMS,

MERRILL,

ZUR

2023

European J Political Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Extensive research applies counterfactual simulation methodology to study parties’ optimal policy positions in multiparty elections. In recent years, this methodology has been extended to the study of variation in issue salience. We employ this method to estimate the electoral effects of changes in the salience of specific positional issue dimensions on parties’ success. Applied to British Election Study survey data from 2017 and 2019, we find that plausible issue salience changes could have shifted the parties’ projected vote shares by several percentage points. Our approach implies that the governing Conservative Party had electoral incentives to downplay positional issues, to magnify the relative effects of its non‐policy advantage due to perceived competence and performance, among other factors. Labour would also have benefitted from reduced salience of Left‐Right ideology. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats had strong electoral incentives to emphasize their moderate Left‐Right position.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 71%

How much does issue salience matter? A model with applications to the UK elections

ADAMS,

MERRILL,

ZUR

2023

European J Political Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Political parties strategically appeal to voters, using either issue- or valence-based appeals (Bjarnøe et al. , 2023).…”

Section: Mft and Political Public Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Political parties strategically appeal to voters, using either issue-or valence-based appeals (Bjarnøe et al, 2023). Issue-based appeals center on the strategy where candidates attempt to set the election's issue agenda, not only giving voters unique policy programs but also a party based in tradition (McDonald and Budge, 2005).…”

Section: Mft and Political Public Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election

Shaughnessy,

Albishri,

Arceneaux

et al. 2023

JCOM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeWhile morality is ever-present in elections, scholars have yet to merge political public relations and Moral Foundations Theory. It is crucial to assess the complex morality present not only in social deduction, but also in political strategic communication. The current work aims to analyze the issue agendas and their relationships in the 2020 presidential campaign and assesses their moral strategy.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a computer-assisted content analysis (N = 7,888) with each moral intuition coded from the Moral Foundations Dictionary. Datapoints included campaign tweets, Facebook posts, debate performances, remarks, news releases and nomination acceptance speeches. Coverage included articles from including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News to assess both liberal and conservative media.FindingsCandidates' issue and moral agendas were correlated with each other and with the media's agenda. Comparatively, the Biden campaign has stronger correlations when it came to connecting with issues, stakeholders and moral intuitions in the media agenda than the Trump campaign. For issues, the Biden campaign prioritized COVID-19 and the economy, while the Trump campaign prioritized the economy and crime. The candidates also had similar moral strategies.Practical implicationsThis study suggests effectively leveraging organizational communications in democracies can support the transfer of object salience, moral attributes and networks to media coverage, public discourse and opponent messaging. It can also help achieve organizational goals by managing public image, reputation and expectations.Originality/valueThis work expands the literature by taking a pluralist moral psychology approach in assessing the salience and correlation of five moral intuitions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. This study serves as a springboard for examining morality's impact on political public relations.

show abstract

Attacks and Issue Competition: Do Parties Attack Based on Issue Salience or Issue Ownership?

Poljak,

Seeberg

2023

Political Communication

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“Our Issue Positions are Strong, and Our Opponents’ Valence is Weak”: An Analysis of Parties' Campaign Strategies in Ten Western European Democracies

Cited by 5 publications

References 60 publications

How much does issue salience matter? A model with applications to the UK elections

How much does issue salience matter? A model with applications to the UK elections

Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election

Attacks and Issue Competition: Do Parties Attack Based on Issue Salience or Issue Ownership?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About