Parteistrategien auf Oligopolistischen Issue-Märkten. Eine Empirische Analyse der Wahlprogrammatik in Deutschland, Dänemark, Österreich und den Niederlanden mit Hilfe des Gutenberg-Modells

Based on saliency theory, the idea of issue ownership means that parties enjoy specific electoral support on certain issues. Narud/Valen (2001) have shown, moreover, that parties in multi-party systems must use the right issue-marketing to gain votes. This paper takes up the idea of issue marketing, making particular use of the microeconomic Gutenberg Model. I will sketch an issue market in which parties can win or lose votes by modifying their programmatic positions. If a party neglects its historically typical core issues, and does not successfully replace these with new core issues, the party will lose votes. I will test my hypotheses using the CMP data set to do a panel regression for Germany, Denmark, Austria, and the Netherlands. This confirms the hypothesized connection between programmatic and voter popularity, especially for social democratic parties.