Under Which Conditions Do Parties Attract Voters’ Reactions to Issues? Party-Varying Issue Voting in German Elections 1987–2009

Bibliographic Data

ID6406828
AuthorsIngrid Mauerer (0000-0003-0596-4530), Paul W Thurner (0000-0001-7336-9878), Marc Debus (0000-0002-7151-7942)
Year2015
Volume38
Issue6
Pages1251-1273
Publication date2015-11-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWest European Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0140-2382 • E-ISSN: 1743-9655
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01402382.2015.1026562
OpenAlexW2056086284
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited43

Are voters’ choices influenced by parties’ position-taking and communication efforts on issues during a campaign? And if so, do voters’ reactions to issues differ across parties? This article outlines a research design for the statistical identification of party-varying issue reactions within the established paradigm of the Spatial Theory of Voting. Using a special feature of conditional logit and probit models – i.e. the estimation of alternative-specific coefficients instead of fixed ‘generic’ issue distance effects – it is possible to detect asymmetrically attached issue saliencies at the level of the voters, and hence at the demand-side of politics. This strategy opens a new way to systematically combine insights obtained by saliency approaches with the Spatial Theory of Voting. An application to the German parliamentary elections from 1987 to 2009 demonstrates that it is predominantly parties taking polar positions – and, more specifically, niche parties taking polar positions – that induce such asymmetric issue voting

Econometrics · Economics · German · Identification (biology · Logit · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Positive economics · Probit model · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research

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