Living in the past or living in the future? Analyzing parties’ platform change in between elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Mariken van der Velden; Gijs Schumacher; Barbara Vis

doi:10.1080/10584609.2017.1384771

Living in the past or living in the future? Analyzing parties’ platform change in between elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Mariken van der Velden^*, Gijs Schumacher, Barbara Vis

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties’ platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	393-412
Number of pages	20
Journal	Political Communication
Volume	35
Issue number	3
Early online date	16 Nov 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1384771
Publication status	Published - 2018

Funding

Mariken van der Velden’s and Barbara Vis’ research is supported by a VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research awarded to Vis (NWO, grant nr. 452-11-005). Gijs Schumacher’s research is supported by a Sapere Aude: Young Elite Researcher grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research awarded to the project “Do Party Leaders Respond to the Party, the Electorate or to Potential Coalition Partners?” All replication materials are stored at the Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xqf-aggx) and on www.marikenvandervelden.eu/ publications.

Funders	Funder number
Velden’s and Barbara Vis
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	452-11-005
Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond

Keywords

anticipation of opinion polls
electoral performance
government-opposition dynamics
political parties’ strategies
topic modeling

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1080/10584609.2017.1384771

Living in the Past or Living in the Future Analyzing Parties Platform Change In Between Elections The Netherlands 1997 2014Final published version, 921 KBLicence: Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act

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title = "Living in the past or living in the future? Analyzing parties{\textquoteright} platform change in between elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014",

abstract = "Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties{\textquoteright} platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.",

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Living in the past or living in the future? Analyzing parties’ platform change in between elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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