PARTY BRANDS AND POLITICAL CHANGE

Abstract

This dissertation examines the long-term development of party brands in advanced democracies and their implications for party strategy and citizens’ engagement with democratic politics. Today, European electorates and party systems are at their most volatile since the Second World War, citizens are less likely to participate in elections, and most of the parties that built the thirty golden years of capitalism and democracy across the West are in retreat. Although many factors have contributed to this change, this dissertation focuses on the extent to which parties, particularly mainstream parties, have struggled to maintain distinct images in voters’ minds and how those images affect public opinion and voter behavior. The first study calculates issue salience divergence—the extent to which parties’ issue emphases diverge—for thirty European countries from 1945 to 2021. By moving beyond country case studies, I am able to identify that issue salience divergence has declined in most European countries. I also identify the effect of the electoral system and party type. The second study assesses the implications of issue salience divergence on the public. First, I verify that citizens notice greater differences between parties when issue salience divergence is elevated. Then, I use mediation analysis to chart the effect of issue salience divergence on satisfaction with democracy and self-reported voter turnout. Low levels of issue salience divergence depress both outcomes. At high levels, turnout becomes more likely, but the relationship between party differences and satisfaction is non-linear, with the most satisfaction occurring at intermediate levels of differentiation. The third study argues that party brands structure the returns to ambivalent and ambiguous electoral appeals. Because ambiguity allows voters to default to their priors, i.e., the party’s brand, they can be used effectively on issues that are central to a party’s brand. Ambivalence, however, signals potential brand deviation. Using an online survey experiment, I identify heterogeneous responses across issues’ brand centrality, appeal type, and the respondent’s partisanship. Together, these studies indicate that parties have become less distinct in the issues they emphasize, electorates incorporate these changes into their decision-making processes, and party brands constrain parties’ strategic opportunities.Doctor of Philosoph