Competence Issue Ownership, Issue Positions and the Vote for the Greens and the Social Democrats (10.1111/spsr.12509)

Replication material for Petitpas, A. & Sciarini, P. (2022). Competence Issue Ownership, Issue Positions and the Vote for the Greens and the Social Democrats, Swiss Political Science Review. 10.1111/spsr.1250

Short-term dynamics in issue-ownership and vote conversion

In this paper, my primary goal is to test if vote conversion is in line with voters' perceptions of parties' competence, i.e. if the competence change in favor of a party during the political campaign triggers vote conversion in favor of this same party. Then, I assess the moderating role of saliency and political knowledge and the difference between ‘valence' and 'positional' issues. I use a four-waves panel data gathered before and after the 2015 Swiss national elections. The results indicate that if a voter changes her competence perceptions in favor of a party, she is more likely to convert her vote in favor of this party. In general, saliency and knowledge are not strong moderators of this relationship. While the study also points out the major role of the ‘migration' and the ‘European Union' issues, the findings about valence and positional issues are not crystal clear

Party Competence on Issues

L'objectif de cette thèse est de comprendre la dynamique des campagnes politiques et comment les citoyen-ne-s changent d'opinions pendant une telle période. Afin de décider pour quel parti voter lors des élections, je soutiens que les citoyen-ne-s ont – entre autres – la question suivante en tête : Quel est le parti le plus compétent ? Ainsi, c'est la perception de la compétence de chaque parti sur certaines thématiques qui importe. Je considère aussi que les citoyen-ne-s, dans le court-terme, peuvent changer de perceptions. Par conséquent, je me penche sur les déterminants et effets de ces changements. La thèse met en évidence trois résultats principaux. Premièrement, les perceptions de la compétence pendant une campagne sont volatiles et cela concerne une part modérée de l'opinion publique. Deuxièmement, la visibilité des partis sur les enjeux pendant la campagne leur permet de gagner une réputation de compétence auprès de certains citoyen-ne-s mais aussi de renforcer leur part de compétence. Troisièmement, la communication politique exerce un effet indirect sur le vote. Elle affecte les perceptions de compétence des électeur/trices, qui, à leur tour, affectent le vote

Paying for ads or getting into the news? How parties persuade citizens of their issue competence during an election campaign

During campaigns, parties must defend their reputation of competence on issues to persuade citizens to vote for them (issue ownership). Consequently, what are the most effective strategies to achieve this? I argue that direct (advertising) and indirect (media coverage) communication strategies have different effects on citizens’ perception of party competence. To analyze the impact of campaign dynamics on citizens, I use three data sources: an individual rolling cross-section panel, a media coverage analysis, and a parties’ advertisements analysis. I link those data on a daily basis to capture the dynamics of parties’ communication and citizens' opinion. The results show that advertisements help parties to win and maintain their issue ownership, while media coverage only helps parties to maintain their ownership. The study has scientific and practical implications with regard to party strategy, campaigns, and citizens’ perceptions of parties.</p

Short‐term dynamics in issue ownership and electoral choice formation

In light of the increased volatility in party preference and alleged importance of issue voting, the scarce knowledge about how short‐term stability and change in issue ownership perceptions influence stability and change of party choice is puzzling. This paper fills a gap by examining whether and to what extent the three pathways of electoral choice formation (activation, conversion and reinforcement) occur in line with the dynamics of issue competence evaluations. Our analysis of panel data from the 2015 Swiss election study shows that the stability and change in issue ownership perceptions is highly consequential. Citizens who change or maintain their competence attribution in favor of a party during the electoral campaign are more likely to activate, convert or reinforce their vote for that party. The results regarding the conditional effects of issue salience are more mixed, but not less interesting