The Micro-Foundations of Party Competition and Issue Ownership: The Reciprocal Effects of Citizens’ Issue Salience and Party Attachments

Abstract

While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens’ issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience – that is, debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel survey data from Germany and Great Britain, this study analyzes the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue salience and their party support, and concludes that citizens’ issue priorities both influence and are influenced by their party attachments and, moreover, that these effects are linked to parties’ long-term associative issue ownership. This effect is strongest among supporters of a small issue-orientated niche party, the German Greens.

Who Leads? Who Follows? Measuring Issue Attention and Agenda Setting by Legislators and the Mass Public Using Social Media Data

“…They have issue priorities that are easier to distinguish and represent (Wright 1989), they play a very active role in nomination processes (Bawn et al 2012), their support is crucial to win not only primaries (Fenno 1978;Gerber and Morton 1998) but also general elections (Holbrook and McClurg 2005), and the priorities of policyoriented members are more likely to align with theirs (Egan 2013;Kastellec et al 2015). Some empirical research finds that in fact legislators are more likely to represent the policy preferences of their supporters (Clinton 2006;Kastellec et al 2015;Neundorf and Adams 2018;Shapiro et al 1990), but no research yet exists showing whether that is the case for issue attention allocation. From this model, however, we can derive that (H 5 ) changes in attention allocation by party supporters predict allocation changes by members of Congress.…”

The importance of salience: public opinion and state policy action on climate change

“…The term issue attention in relation to salience is also seen in work by Neundorf and Adams (2016). The authors discuss the reciprocal relationship between issue salience and political party behavior in Germany and Great Britain, finding that greater emphasis by constituents on certain issues leads political parties to focus on those issues.…”

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

“…A surprisingly understudied question within the retrospective voting literature is how voters' expectations condition performance evaluations (Malhotra and Margalit 2014;Neundorf and Adams 2016). While it is clear that the re-election prospects of incumbents are harmed by bad outcomes in the past and, albeit to a lesser extent, sustained by good outcomes (Mueller 1970;Paldam 1997, 2002), it is still unclear to what extent retrospection is affected by the expectations voters have in advance.…”

“…It is no wonder then that political scientists have spent considerable time investigating the extent to which voters engage in retrospective voting (e.g., Anderson 2000;Duch and Stevenson 2008;Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier 2007;Wilkin et al 1997). Recent research has made a significant advancement in exploring the micro foundations of retrospective voting behavior (e.g., de Vries and Giger 2014;Duch et al 2000;Huber et al 2012;Neundorf and Adams 2016;Singer 2011). Yet, despite the extensive literature on retrospective voting, the question of how voters' expectations condition performance evaluations remains surprisingly understudied (Malhotra and Margalit 2014).…”