How Stable Is Political Parties’ Issue Ownership? A Cross-Time, Cross-National Analysis
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321716650224 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Henrik Bech Seeberg |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716650224
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(2) 475 –492
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321716650224
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How Stable Is Political
Parties’ Issue Ownership?
A Cross-Time,
Cross-National Analysis
Henrik Bech Seeberg
Abstract
Research on issue ownership is accelerating and so is its use in studies of voting and party
behaviour. Yet we do not know how stable issue ownership is. Does it describe a solid, persistent
association between a party and an issue in the eyes of the electorate, or does it describe a
more fluid and fragile issue reputation of a party among the electorate? Theoretical and empirical
work suggests both stability and variability in issue ownership. To get closer to an answer, this
article presents and analyses unprecedented comprehensive data on issue ownership. The analysis
identifies stability rather than change in issue ownership over time and similarity more than
difference across countries, and therefore suggests that issue ownership is a general and long-
term rather than a local and short-term phenomenon. The implications for how voters perceive
parties are important.
Keywords
issue ownership, parties, voters, comparative analysis
Accepted: 4 April 2016
Research on issue ownership is a growth industry (Lefevere et al., 2015). Yet advance-
ment in the understanding and use of issue ownership is impeded by a lack of systematic
knowledge on its stability and variability. Is it a general and long-term phenomenon
describing a solid and persistent association between a party and an issue in the eyes of
the electorate ensured by a party’s long-held link to a certain position and constituency on
an issue? Or is it a context-dependent, short-term phenomenon describing a fluctuating
and hard-to-uphold reputation of a party on an issue decided by the current performance
on the issue?
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Henrik Bech Seeberg, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Alle 7, 8000 Aarhus C,
Denmark.
Email: h.seeberg@ps.au.dk
650224PSX0010.1177/0032321716650224Political StudiesSeeberg
research-article2016
Article
476 Political Studies 65 (2)
Knowledge on the stability over time of issue ownership and its similarity across coun-
tries is important because it has major implications for our understanding of parties and
voters. If issue ownership is a product of day-to-day politics, it may just be another word
for framing effects or political communication – issue ownership is something amenable
in the minds of voters that is constantly formed and reformed by current messages from
the parties. Issue ownership becomes something that can explain single events but does
not travel beyond its immediate context. For instance, accounts of recent elections in
Britain have centred closely on the party best able to portray itself as currently most com-
petent in managing the economy (Clarke et al., 2009; Whiteley et al., 2013).
If issue ownership instead appears as a permanent factor from election to election, it
expresses something more fundamental about how voters perceive parties equivalent to
the role of ideology. Issue ownership means something: even if a voter identifies with a
party and agrees with its opinions, she may still prefer another party to take care of a
certain issue. She may even vote for this party if this issue becomes important to her.
Obama’s mobilisation on the traditional democratic issues of health and unemployment
thus features as a key ingredient in his 2008 victory (Wright, 2012). In this scenario, par-
ties can take advantage of issue ownership to connect to voters, but will also be con-
strained by issue ownership in the sense that strategies have to be put together around
issue ownership. It is a basic structure for party competition which reflects historical
political conflicts, although cleavages and class politics may be long gone.
Existing work suggests both stability and change in issue ownership. The seminal
work by John Petrocik (1996) introduces issue ownership in a short-term and a long-term
version, and subsequent work has only shown modest interest in clarifying the uncertain
degree of stability and change in issue ownership that stems from his work despite its
enthusiastic use of issue ownership to understand parties and voters (Walgrave et al.,
2012, 2015). By either using issue ownership as a constant to understand voting and party
behaviour (e.g. Dolezal et al., 2013; Meguid and Belanger, 2008) or investigating how
issue ownership erodes or is overtaken (e.g. Belanger, 2003; Brasher, 2009; Dahlberg and
Martinsson, 2015; Holian, 2004; Tresch et al., 2013), empirical work emphasises stability
as much as instability in issue ownership. So the puzzle remains: Is issue ownership a
stable, long-term phenomenon?
In a mediatised world concentrated on politicians’ competences and performance and
their short-term strategies to undercut each other, day-to-day news coverage easily gives
the impression that issue reputations are highly conditional. However, this may not be the
case if we take one step back and examine the broader patterns. Yet existing work does
not provide such a systematic overview. So far, most studies have looked at only a few
issues and typically only in one country (e.g. Brasher, 2009; Egan, 2013; Pope and Woon,
2009). As a consequence, systematic knowledge is yet to be seen on how stable voters’
perceptions of parties’ issue ownerships are, and this hampers progress in the understand-
ing of stability and change in issue ownership.
In this article, a novel database is presented that allows a systematic and comprehen-
sive test of the stability of issue ownership. The database covers issue ownership from
136 national election surveys in 17 countries across three decades. The analysis shows
that stability over time and similarity across countries in issue ownership is the norm
rather than the exception. On about two out of three issues, issue ownership overall
belongs to a party from the same side of the ideological divide over time and across
countries. This evidence suggests that issue ownership is a long-term and distinct
phenomenon.
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