The Conceptualisation and Measurement of Issue Ownership

Abstract

Issue ownership means that some parties are considered by the public at large as being more able to deal with, or more attentive to, certain issues. The theory has been used to explain both party behaviour -parties are expected to focus on owned issues -and voter behaviour -when a voter considers a party to own an issue, this affects the odds of voting for that party. The purpose of this article is, first, to provide a look backward at the existing research through a literature review of the studies that were conducted in the past decade-and-a-half. Secondly, it takes stock of the current conceptualisation and argues that issue ownership is a multidimensional concept. Thereafter the article discusses how this multidimensionality affects both the role of issue ownership in voter and in party behaviour. Finally, the article outlines a number of shortcomings of the extant literature and discusses potential avenues for future research.

Parliamentary questions as strategic party tools

“…This is particularly true for valence issues on which (almost) everybody agrees: high employment, economic growth or environmental protection. Some parties have a stronger reputation on such issues: they 'own' certain issues (Petrocik 1996;Walgrave et al 2015). As Carmines and Stimson (1989: 6) succinctly put it: '[a] ll successful politicians instinctively understand which issues benefit them and their party and which do not.…”

Gaining voice in the mass media: The effect of parties’ strategies on party–issue linkages in election news coverage

“…Issue ownership "refers to the link between specific parties and issues in the minds of voters." (Walgrave et al, 2015) Parties are said to "own" an issue if they have an electoral advantage when the issue becomes salient in the public. Issue ownership has two dimensions: First, issue ownership can either describe a voters perceived competence of a party to handle an issue (Petrocik, 1996).…”

Credit or debit? The effect of issue ownership on retrospective economic voting

“…When it comes to issue ownership, the literature has relied on several different measurements in voter surveys (Walgrave et al 2015). Most approaches measuring ownership ask respondents to assess which party would be best able to handle or solve a specific issue or problem (e.g., Petrocik 1996;Stubager and Slothuus 2013).…”

“…This might be due to a strong correlation between party preferences and party performance. 6 This question refers to the quality of recent 'proposals' rather than to handling abilities, an approach commonly followed in previous research (though see Aalberg and Jenssen 2007;Green andHobolt 2008 andLachat 2014;Walgrave et al 2015). We decided on this question wording based on cognitive pretesting (Wagner and Zeglovits 2014), which showed that respondents struggled less when asked about 'proposals' than when asked about the party 'best/worst at dealing with issue X,' perhaps because thinking about past actions is more concrete than considering hypothetical handling abilities.…”