What is Issue Ownership and How Should We Measure It?

Abstract

Recently, the concept of issue ownership has attracted increasing attention by students of electoral behaviour as well as party competition. However, both the definition and measurement of issue ownership-often drawn from Petrocik's seminal 1996-article-is unclear. This constitutes a serious drawback to the further development and understanding of issue ownership itself and its purported effects. The paper addresses these problems by, first, establishing a definition of issue ownership at the individual level. On this basis, the standard 'which party is best at handling issue X' measure of issue ownership is assessed. The analyses using experiments embedded in a nationally representative panel survey indicate that the measure lacks validity and is partially redundant. Consequently, its replacement with a better performing alternative is recommended.

Moderation and Competence: How a Party's Ideological Position Shapes Its Valence Reputation

“…Two points about these measures, designed specifically for this study, are worth noting. First, we depart from previous studies that have mostly equated party competence with issue competence and have therefore used issue‐specific measures—typically of the form “Which party is best at handling [issue]?” (e.g., Bellucci ; Green and Jennings ; Pardos‐Prado ; Stubager ; Walgrave, Tresch, and Lefevere ). Green and Jennings share our conceptual interest in a measure of generalized or macro‐competence but measure it indirectly via the “common variation in public evaluations of competence across a range of [specific] issues” (, 319; see also Green and Jennings ).…”

Who Owns What, and Why? The Origins of Issue Ownership Beliefs

“…Either way, our research deals not with the behavior of politicians but with the attitudes of ordinary voters, and with the issue ownership as a dependent variable . The inconsistency noted earlier in studies that examine the impact of ownership beliefs on voting can be attributed in part to a lack of clarity regarding how issue ownership should be conceptualized and measured in the first place (Stubager ; Walgrave, Lefevere, and Tresch ; Walgrave, Tresch, and Lefevere ). Most survey‐based studies, including our own, ask respondents to indicate whether one party or the other is better able (more competent ) to “handle” or “deal with” an issue.…”

To whom does the agenda belong? Review of issue ownership theory

“…Несмотря на возросшее число публикаций, посвященных анализу владения повесткой дня, вопросы определения данного явления остаются актуальными. Владение повесткой можно понимать, как представления избирателей, что какая-либо партия на протяжении длительного времени остается наиболее компетентной в решении конкретной проблемы, то есть способной получить желаемый результат [Stubager, 2017]. Это определение может вызвать ряд вопросов, [Goggin, Theodoridis, 2017].…”