Party Issue Emphasis and Issue Ownership: How Incumbency Matters

Party Issue Emphasis and Issue Ownership: How Incumbency Matters Henrik Bech Seeberg, h.seeberg@ps.au.dk POLIS research center on party competition Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark Abstract. At elections, parties profit from reputations among the electorate to handle issues, and studies of how parties influence their reputations are therefore rapidly growing. Whereas these studies tend to look at parties as if they all reach out to the electorate from a similar position, this study takes parties into their natural setting. A party is either in government or in opposition, and this affects its opportunities to influence voters evaluations. Existing work suggests that any party by issue emphasis can improve issue ownership on any issue, but this paper suggests that only parties in office can do so systematically and only on issues which are typically associated with an adversary party. A large-scale empirical analysis comparing issue emphasis of the opposition and the government on nine issues across eight countries over time provides compelling evidence in support. Key words: issue ownership, parties, government agendas, voters, issue emphasis. First draft prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Comparative Agendas Project in Lisbon, June 2015. 1

The issue handling reputation of parties among voters, i.e. parties issue ownership, matters greatly to the vote choice according to several studies (Aardal and van Wijnen 2005; Green and Jennings 2011; Meguid and Belanger 2008; Wright 2012; Petrocik 1996). How parties influence issue ownership is, accordingly, the subject of a burgeoning literature (Egan 2013; Jane Green and Jennings 2012; Tresch, Lefevere, and Walgrave 2012; Brasher 2009; Lefevere, Tresch, and Walgrave 2015; Stubager and Slothuus 2013). Stressed in particular is the importance of how much parties emphasize an issue for its reputation on this issue (Egan 2013; Walgrave and Swert 2007; Walgrave, Lefevere, and Nuytemans 2009; Dahlberg and Martinsson 2015; Tresch, Lefevere, and Walgrave 2012). A characteristic of this work on parties and issue ownership is that parties are studied virtually as if they were reaching out to voters from an identical position. However, parties are either in government or in opposition, and this is a key difference when accounting for how voters look at parties (Klingemann, Hofferbert, and Budge 1994; Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010). As pointed out also by Green and Jennings (2011) and Butt (2006), the mechanism by which voters evaluate parties works differently depending on the status of the party. Voters do not receive the same information from the opposition party, and parties therefore do not have the same opportunities to influence voters issue evaluations. This paper argues that incumbency matters. When in office, a party can do something to tackle problems and address concerns of the electorate. In office, talking about an issue almost automatically means legislation in some way on the issue. Voters therefore receive more information on which to evaluate the issue-handling competence of the incumbent party. Talking outside office is information-light in comparison, and emphasizing an issue while in opposition therefore has less punch. 2

That said, holding office also means having policy responsibility. Taking office comes with high expectations from the electorate and disappointment has electoral consequences (Marsh and Tilley 2009). This affects government parties opportunities to influence issues, since in the context of issue competence evaluation, expectations differ across issues. Since the Social democrats, e.g., are traditionally associated with the welfare state (Hibbs 1977; Finseraas and Vernby 2011; Stoll 2010), expectations are according to an issue ownership logic higher than on for instance crime or immigration which the Social Democrats typically are not similarly associated with (and vice versa for bourgeois parties). When trying to impress, it helps to be the underdog. Whereas existing work suggests that any party by issue emphasis can improve issue ownership on any issue, this paper holds that only parties in office can do so systematically and only on issue which are typically associated with an adversary party. To test this proposition, the paper gathers comparative data on issue ownership from national election studies on nine issues across eight countries over time. As an indicator of government issue emphasis, what is known as the Queen s speech is issue content coded and matched with the issue ownership evaluations. To make the comparison to issue emphasis by opposition parties, Comparative Manifesto data is employed. The findings have important implications for our understanding of how parties are perceived by voters. Can parties influence issue ownership? Issue ownership derives from Budge and Farlie s pioneering work (Budge and Farlie 1983; Budge 1982) and Petrocik s seminal paper (1996). According to Budge (1992: 149), an issue ownership describes that [ ] electors overwhelmingly endorse a certain goal within each area and see one of the parties as most likely to achieve it under all foreseeable circumstances. This 3

goal could be law and order or full employment, and Petrocik adds to this (1996: 826): An issue ownership is a reputation for policy and program interest, produced by a history of attention, initiative, and innovation toward problems, which leads voters to believe that one of the parties is more sincere and committed to do something. Hence, if a party has an issue ownership, it enjoys a distinct reputation for handling problems (or achieving goals in Budge s words) on an issue to such an extent that voters associate the issue with this party. Such issue ownership is generally considered to be subject to small-scale fluctuations in the short-run but largely stable in the long-run (Petrocik 1996; see also Stubager and Slothuus 2013; Seeberg 2015; Pope and Woon 2009; Brasher 2009; Egan 2013). Although issue ownership is not a complete product of its immediate context, it is neither a constant because an issue ownership describes a party s reputation for being best to take care of an issue (Petrocik 1996). Reputations need to be actively nurtured, and this can be done in several ways. The literature emphasizes especially a party s position on an issue, its performance, its links to constituencies on the issues, and its issue emphasis (Egan 2013; Stubager and Slothuus 2013; Davidsson and Marx 2013; Wright 2012; Blomqvist and Green-Pedersen 2004; Holian 2004; Arndt 2014; Petrocik 1996; Brasher 2009). Among these, a party s issue emphasis has been stressed as particularly important to issue ownership (Walgrave and Swert 2007; Walgrave, Lefevere, and Nuytemans 2009; Tresch, Lefevere, and Walgrave 2012; Dahlberg and Martinsson 2015; Egan 2013; Brasher 2009). Egan (2013) for instance concludes that signaling priority is the single most important factor in comparison to the influence of a party s performance and position. As Egan elaborates (2013), issue emphasis is central to nurture a reputation for competently handling an issue because it signals concern for the issue; only by seriously attending to an issue can a party identify and confront problems. Emphasis thereby becomes the 4

first-order question in the eyes of the voters for evaluations of issue-handling competence. But it is probably also a frequently employed strategy because upscaling issue emphasis does not require a break with the past at a level comparable to especially changing position or constituency on an issue you say the same, but talk more and a party therefore has more latitude to pursue this strategy. It can show concern for an issue and still maintain its long-held stance on an issue (Brasher 2009, 71; Klingemann, Hofferbert, and Budge 1994). Whereas parties both in government and in opposition can target issue emphasis, a manifest advantage comes from being in office. This advantage is particularly acute when it comes to delivering on the issue but it also arises for the opportunities to signal priority directly and credibly to the electorate. Government status is fundamental to a party, and its omission in previous work on issue ownership leaves a too simple view on parties. The difference between government and opposition: Why the access to legislate matters When using issue emphasis to influence issue ownership, parties in and out of office are put in unequal positions. The imbalance is captured eloquently by Klingemann et al (1994: 28): Incumbents have a record, the opposition has only its words. Basically, the government can legislate. This makes a huge difference to how voters assess parties, because it gives voters more information. The government can put legislation behind its words, and talking rarely comes without action. The government s communication bears on its actual performance in office, and when it makes promises, it can turn it into legislation to a far greater extent than the opposition. The demonstration of commitment has another flavor (Brasher 2009, 72). The opposition can only talk, and talking in this context is cheap. Voters lack information on the opposition s actual managerial capabilities and voters competence assessment therefore remain hypothetical. This makes it difficult for the opposition to convince voters of its 5

credentials. Short of information when voters make their verdict on the opposition, they have been found to rely on their view on the government (Butt 2006; Green and Jennings 2011). This way, voters choice between parties centers principally on their satisfaction with the incumbents. As Norris (2001, 576) puts it: oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them. Voters eyes are on the government. So if existing work has identified an impact of issue emphasis by parties in general on issue ownership, this result may be driven entirely by the impact from the party in office. The difference between issues for the government: Why policy responsibility matters Holding office is a double-edged sword, and this is important to take into account in order to understand how incumbency matters. The access to legislate not only gives the incumbents visibility and a platform on which to show commitment to an issue. It also makes the government responsible for policy. As demonstrated by Thesen (2013) and Green-Pedersen and Mortensen (2010), a government is repeatedly forced to turn its attention to and tackle all sorts of disturbing policy problems. Voters expect the government to do so, and will punish it electorally if it disappoints (Marsh and Tilley 2009). Since the office-holder has been selected before a competing party, these expectations are high. Being able to do something is not only an advantage for a party in office compared to an opposition party, it is also a challenge. In the context of issue ownership, such environment implies that the incumbent party probably can prompt fewer improvements on issues it already has strong ratings on. This contrasts with previous studies of the impact of parties issue emphasis on the competence rating across issues which find that issue emphasis mostly works to reaffirm existing issue ownership rather than carve in on the issue ownership of other parties (Walgrave, Lefevere, and Nuytemans 2009). Taking incumbency status into account suggests another logic. 6

Since an issue evaluation basically reflects the difference between expectations on the party and its actual track record, expectations to a party are as important as its actual behavior. As parties come to office with a history on each issue according to the logic of issue ownership, parties do not have the same opportunities on the same issue. Prior issue associations inevitably set certain expectations. Especially when it comes to the incumbent party which has been trusted by a majority of the electorate to handle issues competently. This logic extends directly on the classic work of Powell and Whitten (1993, 404) which argue that voters expects more of a Social democratic government on unemployment than inflation. Following this logic, the historic issue owner has the strongest prior reputation, and thereby also the highest expectations to deliver on the issue. For the issue owner, it is hard to reach above standard expectations to do well on the issue. A simple floor-ceiling effect may be at work: If a left-of-center (right-of-center) government already has a high (low) rating on an issue usually associated with a left-of-center party (a left issue ), it is hard to see further increases (decreases). It implies that issue emphasis by a right-of-center government in comparison to a left-of-center government generates relatively more positive issue evaluations by the voters on a left issue compared to a right issue. This comparison does not say anything about the extent to which emphasis of a right issue by a left-of-center government does not have an impact, or even may worsen voters evaluations. It is likely that the expectation asymmetry is so pronounced that only the underdog (i.e. the party without issue ownership) can impress whereas the party with the issue ownership only can disappoint. Against this view, it could be argued that an issue ownership means that a party has saved up credit to draw on, which makes voters look benevolently at the government. It could also be argued that when a party in office emphasizes an issue on which it does not have issue 7

ownership, voters will focus on information that discredits the governing party because this information conveniently reaffirms their prior bleak beliefs on this party. Along the same lines of reasoning, it could be argued that when the party with issue ownership confronts an issue, it primarily works to remind voters of reasons to prefer it before the others (like Walgrave, Lefevere, and Nuytemans [2009] argue). These views suggest that the party with issue ownership is in a better position to uphold or improve on its reputation on this issue. This may be at work, but the ruthless expectations on the government party with the issue ownership probably exert a stronger pull on voters issue evaluations. Summing up, whereas existing work suggests that any party can improve issue ownership on any issue by issue emphasis, this paper proposes that only parties in office can do so systematically and only on issues which they are typically not associated with. Data To address incumbent party issue emphasis, studies of what is often known as the Queen s Speech are proliferating (Mortensen et al. 2011; Jennings et al. 2011; John, Bevan, and Jennings 2013; Dowding et al. 2010). In this highly profiled, prominent address by the Prime Minister (or an official substitute) to the parliament across Western democracies, the opportunities to reach the electorate are particularly immediate. Here, the incumbent party can portray itself as competent in handling problems. It can look back at past accomplishments in office and present initiatives to confront current problems. Studies of this key agenda-setting moment for the government show that pressing problems to a large degree decides the content of its speech (Mortensen et al. 2011; Jennings et al. 2011; John, Bevan, and Jennings 2013; Dowding et al. 2010), however there is also scope for partisan politics as well as latitude to respond to issue 8

concerns of the public (Jennings and John 2009). As demonstrated by John and Jennings (2011), legislation tends to follow promises made in this speech. Although many unforeseen events can come in the way of the government in delivering on its promises, i.e. between the government speech and voters issue evaluation, there are definitely also reasons to expect that this speech reflect the government s efforts to impact on the voter s evaluations. These government speeches have been content coded across time in eight countries (see Table 1). Survey responses on issue ownership have been collected from National Election Studies in the same countries. The party with the strongest reputation is referred to as the issue owner. Adhering to standards in the literature (Petrocik 1996; Egan 2013: 66; Brasher 2009), this is calculated as a proportion of respondents naming a party on an issue, and respondents who did not name a party were excluded. To ensure comparability between executive speeches and issue ownership, both have been content coded according to the issue codebook of the comparative agendas project (Baumgartner, Jones, and Wilkerson 2011). The available data allows analysis of nine issues (see Table 1). 1 For each issue in each country, 5.6 data points are available on average across the 1990s and 2000s mostly. The case selection has been decided by the availability of comparable data, and yields 242 observations in total. 1 The issue ownership data is described in more detail in Seeberg (2015). The data on the executive speeches has generously been made available by the national teams of the comparative agendas project except for NZ and Sweden which I have coded myself for the analysis. Executive speeches in Germany and Australia have been coded by major categories, hence, not allowing analysis at the subcategory level on issues such as unemployment, budgets, and tax. 9

In order to allow comparison across multiple political systems, only the issue endorsement of the main government party is used in the analysis. This also ensures the most accurate measure, particularly in multiparty systems, since the executive speech is usually associated with the Prime Minister which often heads the largest party in the government coalition. Issue ownership is collected from national election studies, and is therefore measured at elections. To establish the correct order of time, the executive speech in the year before the election-year is used in the analysis. 2 The wide selection of political systems for the analysis including parliamentary systems with few and many parties, federal and presidential systems, promises a fertile ground for generalizability of the results. [Table 1] The analysis relies on variation in the issue ownership. This is indeed the case for the issues selected for the analysis. Figure 1 displays the overall left-right endorsement across issues (the right-of-center party score subtracted from the left-of-center party score) for all countries in the analysis. The dots in Figure 1 display the intercept term from a univariate fixed effect regression for each issue with countries as panels (reported in Table A1 in the appendix). The penetrating vertical line indicates its confidence interval. If the line is to the right (left) of and does not touch the vertical line, it indicates a right (left) issue ownership across countries. [Figure 1] The issue ownership estimates fall on a diagonal line. At both ends of the line, some issues are strongly affiliated with one party. To the left of the vertical line, the environment, education, 2 In Australia, the speech is only delivered at the investiture of a new executive, and the time span is therefore larger here. 10

unemployment, and health are strongly associated with left-of-center parties across the countries. To the right of the vertical line, law and order, asylum and immigration, and the budget are strongly associated with right-of-center parties across the countries in the analysis. In the middle of the diagonal line, the issues of economy and tax hardly escape the vertical line. The positive coefficients do indicate that right parties have the strongest reputation, but the touch of the horizontal lines with the vertical line show that this is uncertain. Except for the issue of tax (which is normally associated with right-of-center parties), this distribution of issues corresponds to the standard assertions on issue ownership in the literature (Petrocik 1996; Egan 2013). To reflect this overall landscape of issue ownership, the analysis compares the group of solid issues belonging to the right-of-center parties with the group of issues belonging to the left-of-center parties. Due to the uncertain issue ownership of economy and tax, a separate analysis is conducted on these issues. To test if incumbency matters to parties opportunities to influence issue ownership, the analysis also tests the effect of issue emphasis by opposition parties on issue reputations. There is no cross-country source of opposition issue emphasis equivalent to the Queen Speech, and the analysis therefore relies on the widely used data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP; Volkens et al. 2012) on issue emphasis in party manifestos. Whereas CMP-data is available for the main opposition party of all eight countries, the CMP content coding only covers four issues which allows direct comparisons to the analysis of the executive speeches. 3 These are the economy, education, crime and the environment. 4 3 The low number of policy areas covered in CMP (where e.g. codes on health, energy, and transportation are absent) is an additional reason for using the executive speeches for the analysis instead of CMP-data also for the incumbent party. 11

With multiple issues over multiple time points in multiple countries, the estimates are specified in a multi-level framework taking account the three diverging sources of error (Rabe- Hesketh and Skrondal 2008). For the specification of the model, the rather low number of time points renders serial correlation less of a problem. The argument is tested through a tree-way interaction between the issue emphasis variable, a dummy for the color of the government, and a dummy for issue ownership. The government dummy takes the value 1 for right-of-center parties ( parfam -code 40-80 in the CMP data), and 0 otherwise (parties with parfam -code 90 and above in the CMP data are excluded). The issue dummy takes the value 1 for issues owned by right parties, i.e. crime, asylum/immigration, the budget, and the value 0 for the issues of health, education, environment, and unemployment. A separate analysis is conducted for the economy and tax due to their unclear issue ownership. Results The analysis focuses first on the opposition and subsequently on the government. In line with the argument, a party in opposition does not seem to have opportunities to systematically impact on voters issue evaluations through its issue emphasis. Judging from the insignificant coefficients in Table 2, this lack of impact opportunities applies to the economy (columns 3-4) as well as to the other issues (columns 1-2), conditional on the match between the party and the issue (column 2) as well as unconditionally (column 1). This result stays unchanged in a jackknife robustness analysis where countries are excluded one by one (see Table A2 in the appendix). 4 Using as CMP-variables for the economy the sum score of per401-per404 and per406- per412, for education per506 and per507, for crime per605, and for the environment per416 and per501. 12

[Table 2] This is different for government agenda-setting, which impact on voters issue evaluations is reported in Table 3. As expected, government issue emphasis has a systematic impact on issue ownership only when expectations on the party-issue link are taken into account. The unconditional estimate in the first column is positive, but statistically insignificant. The threeway interaction term in contrast in the second column between issue emphasis and the party and issue dummies is statistically significant (the fourth row). This three-way interaction carries a lot of information. This effect is robust to the exclusion one by one of either a country or an issue (regression estimates reported in Tables A3 and A4 in the appendix). The result can also be replicated using CMP-data equivalent to that used for the test of the impact of opposition party issue emphasis on issue reputation (see Tables A5 in the appendix). [Table 3] Focusing on the three-way interaction in column two, issue emphasis by a left-of-center government on a left issue has a negative effect on voters issue evaluations (negative coefficient in the first row). When changing either the issue emphasized by the left-of-center government or the government that emphasizes the left issue, this effect changes: If the left issue is emphasized by a right-of-center government instead, the effect on voters issue evaluations turns positive (the sum of coefficients in row one and two is positive), or the left-ofcenter government emphasizes a right issue, its impact on voters issue evaluations turn positive (the sum of coefficients in row one and three is positive). The impact is noteworthy: for each extra percentage of its attention devoted to this right issue, the left-of-center government can improve its issue handling reputation by about 1.2 pct.-points. If a government thoroughly 13

confronts an issue it usually stays away from, this can quickly accumulate into double digit numbers. Finally, when changing the issue and the government (now a right-of-center government on a right issue ), the effect is back where it started (the sum of coefficients in row one to four is negative). [Figure 2] These contrasting effects are illustrated in four plots of the marginal effects in Figure 2. In the upper left corner with a left-of-center government on a left issue, there is a decreasing slope for the relationship between issue emphasis and issue evaluations. This is also the direction of the slope in the lower right corner with a right-of-center government on a right issue. The slope turns from decreasing to increasing when mismatching government and issue: it is positive in the upper right corner with a right-of-center government on a left issue and similarly positive in the lower left corner with a left-of-center government on a right issue. The opportunities for an incumbent party to influence its issue reputations on issues usually associated with the opposing party are not trivial: when a left-center government moves from not attending to a right issue at all, to devoting about 10pct. of its attention to the issue, its issue reputation increases on average from 30 to 40pct. Finally, despite the lack of issue ownership on the issues of economy and tax, issue emphasis also improves issue reputations. Again, the opportunities are unequal between right and left parties. Only right-of-center government has a positive impact on issue ratings by the voters compared to a left-of-center government. Summing up, incumbency seems to matter: there is only a systematic impact of issue emphasis on voters issue evaluations when the party is in office. Moreover, for the incumbents, 14

history seems to matter: a right-of-center government can only improve on its ratings on a left issue (and vice versa). The match between party in government and issue not only seems to matter in a relative sense but also in absolute terms: the results suggest that it is not only the case that issue emphasis by right-of-center governments on a left issue is received more positively by the voters compare to a left-of-center government issue emphasis by a left-of-center government of a left issue brings lower issue ratings by the voters and higher ratings for a right government (and vice versa on a right issue ). The asymmetry looks surprisingly strong from these results. Conclusions Parties profit from issue reputations among the electorate at elections, and studies trying to understand how parties influence these issue reputations are therefore rapidly growing. Whereas existing work studies parties virtually as if they reach out to the electorate from a similar position, this study takes parties into their natural setting. A party is either in government or in opposition, and this affects its opportunities to influence voters evaluations. Incumbency matters because only the office-holding party can put legislation behind its words. Its communication bears on its actual performance in office, and it thereby communicates with more weight to the electorate. Voters receive more information on which to evaluate the incumbents. A large-scale empirical analysis of nine issues across eight countries over time indeed shows that only government issue emphasis improves its issue ratings among the voters. Opposition issue emphasis does not have an impact. To understand how incumbency matters, its policy responsibility is also taken into account. Being able to do something is not only an advantage for a party in office compared to 15

an opposition party, it is also a challenge. The party in office has policy responsibility and is expected to do the right thing. And since the office-holder has been selected before a competing party, these expectations are high. Especially for the party with the issue ownership, increasing its issue evaluations among the voters can be difficult. Emphasizing an issue on which it has issue ownership may even boomerang and invite voters to show their disappointment with the incumbents on this issue, the analysis indicates. Issue emphasis only improves on ratings on issues which are usually associated with the competing party, and this counts for parties right of center as well as left of center. Though the issue ownership of tax and unemployment was unclear, the analysis also identified an asymmetry on these issues with opportunities to improve on the competence ratings only to right-of-center parties in government. Covering eight major issues across nine different political systems, noting suggests that these results do not generalize to other issues or countries. The study has important implications for our understanding of how parties are perceived by voters. Recent prominent work on this much-debated question of responsiveness in the democratic system concludes somewhat depressingly that voters do not listen to parties (Adams, Ezrow, and Somer-Topcu 2011; Adams, Ezrow, and Somer-Topcu 2014). By demonstrating the opposite, this study offers a more optimistic view. The level of analysis diverges in these studies, and may therefore explain the disagreement. The disconfirming studies look at voters positional changes on the ideological scale in response to parties change in their election manifestos. This study zooms in on the extent to which voters listen to the party in office with regard to how policy problems are identified and tackled. According to this logic, responsiveness may take place more visibly and vividly at the level of policy issues, which voters and parties care about, than at the more abstract level of ideology. Moreover, the spatial analysis does not take 16

asymmetries due to incumbency status into account. This could suggest that voters genuinely care about parties, but not so much at the broad ideological level, and mostly in regard to the incumbent party. For the blooming research agenda on issue ownership, this study directs attention to a major difference between the government party and the opposition party, and thereby encourages further research on what parties in and out office can do to improve on their issue ownership. There is much more to be learned. For instance, the government does not communicate to the electorate in isolation, but is exposed to blame-attacks from the opposition as well as critical media coverage and policy-developments which prove hard for the government to improve on. To what extend is the government s destiny in its own hands in the hostile environment? Answering such question may bring new insights on the important link between parties and voters at the issue level. 17

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Figure 1. Issue ownership (pct.) across countries and over time. Budget Asylum/immigration Law/ order Tax Economy Unemployment Education Health Environment Left issue ownership Right issue ownership -50 0 50 Note. Estimates are reported in Table A3 in the appendix. 21

Figure 2. The impact of issue emphasis by government party on their issue ratings (a) Left and Right governments on right issue left government right government 20 40 60 80 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 (b) Left and Right governments on left issue 20 40 60 80 left government right government 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 22

Table 1. Overview of data on issue ownership and the executive speech across countries and time. Economy Health Education Environment Law and Order Unemployment Budget Tax Asylum /immigr. Sweden Issue own. 91-10 (6) 02-10 (3) 94-06 (4) 91-02 (4) 91-02 (4) 91-10 (6) 91-10 (6) 91-02 (4) Exe. speech 90-09 (6) 90-09 (6) 90-05 (5) 90-01 (4) 90-01 (4) 90-09 (6) 90-01 (4) 90-09 (6) 90-01 (4) Denmark Issue own. 90-09 (7) 98-09 (5) 01-09 (4) 94-09 (6) 94-09 (6) 90-09 (7) 90-98 (3) 94-07 (5) 98-09 (5) Exe. speech 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) 89-08 (20) Italy Issue own. 06-08 (2) 01-06 (2) 01-06 (2) 01-06 (2) 01-08 (3) 01-08 (3) 01-08 (3) Exe. speech 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) 01-08 (4) Germany Issue own. 87-02 (4) 02 (1) 87-90 (2) 87-90 (2) 79-06 (8) 87 (1) 02 (1) 90-05 (2) Exe. speech 78-05 (28) 78-05 (28) 78-05 (28) 78-05 (28) 78-05 (28) UK Issue own. 95-13 (12) 78-12 (18) 77-12 (19) 95-98 (3) 77-12 (19) 77-12 (13) 10-11 (2) 79-12 (14) 04-13 (4) Exe. speech 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) 76-15 (40) US Issue own. 76-12 (11) 92-12 (4) 96-12 (4) 90-98 (5) 90-12 (6) 76-12 (7) 82-12 (7) 94-12 (3) 12 (1) Exe. speech 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) 75-12 (38) Australia Issue own. 87-10 (3) 90-10 (8) 90-10 (8) 90-10 (8) 93 (1) 90-10 (7) 90 (1) 90-10 (8) 96-10 (6) Exe. speech 87-08 (7) 87-08 (7) 87-08 (7) 87-08 (7) 87-08 (7) NZ Issue own. 99-11 (5) 99-08 (4) 99-11 (4) 99-08 (2) 99-08 (4) 05-08 (2) 99-05 (2) 99-05 (2) Exe. speech 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) 98-10 (5) Note. Entries are first and last year and the number of observations in brackets. 23

Table 2. Average issue ownership (IO) and issue emphasis (Emp.) across eight issues in nine countries. Economy Health Education Environment Crime Unemploy. Budget Tax Immigration Gov IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp IO Emp Sweden L 54.7 4.4 49.7 1.8 35.6 9.2 6.7 6.7 22.6 4.8 55.5 4.7 1.3 36.6 1.3 34.1 0.4 R 2.8 4.0 1.3 2.0 5.8 22.6 9.4 0.2 6.3 2.3 4.0 3.6 1.5 2.7 2.2 3.1 Denmark L 38.6 7.7 47.2 4.4 45.3 3.2 82.1 2.4 28.5 3.7 68.5 2.1 21.1 2.4 58.9 1.4 40.6 3.2 R 67.1 6.1 36.5 3.6 42.5 4.7 22.0 1.5 74.9 3.6 41.7 2.3 79.6 2.0 68.4 3.2 54.9 7.3 Italy L 66.8 10.6 43.0 1.7 34.7 2.7 2.1 42.9 7.2 56.3 5.1 57.4 2.2 61.2 0.7 R 2.4 41.9 5.2 40.4 10.4 1.7 27.7 11.1 36.9 1.4 2.4 40.1 1.2 29.8 Germany L 27.7 15.8 37.6 1.4 2.6 3.1 1.6 36.9 28.0 2.6 R 63.7 16.4 1.3 2.0 37.7 4.3 63.1 2.2 48.6 70.1 57.5 UK L 53.3 2.4 56.9 3.9 50.6 4.6 47.2 2.7 41.4 10.4 61.8 1.0 1.0 41.7 0.6 21.1 0.7 R 48.2 2.0 23.8 1.2 36.0 2.6 17.6 1.3 56.5 5.0 28.5 0.8 51.8 2.0 42.8 0.6 77.1 0.3 US L 54.6 4.7 67.9 5.8 80.3 5.0 78.2 0.9 49.2 4.6 74.0 0.9 59.3 5.0 59.3 3.4 32.9 1.0 R 45.3 2.1 4.0 31.1 4.5 24.3 1.3 53.1 4.4 34.0 0.7 78.6 6.1 3.5 0.3 Australia L 49.9 10.6 57.5 4.6 58.3 8.2 63.6 5.3 38.6 1.8 49.5 32.9 39.2 32.5 R 17.2 39.9 4.4 36.0 4.0 38.0 2.2 4.0 51.4 55.4 57.6 NZ L 52.6 1.4 61.7 4.3 61.4 6.5 20.4 10.2 30.9 5.3 69.7 2.9 0.0 23.9 0.5 18.8 2.0 R 56.1 2.7 17.9 4.8 34.8 10.3 28.1 0.4 26.6 4.6 0.7 1.2 33.5 8.1 27.4 1.2 24

Table 3. Effect of issue emphasis by the main opposition party on issue ownership of seven issues across seven countries. CMP Opposition emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party (on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left party) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party x Right Issue (by Left party) (1) (4) (5) (6) 0.3617-0.0688 (0.487) (0.287) 0.5170 (0.424) 0.2396 (0.738) -0.3193 (0.768) 0.4095 (1.224) -0.5363 (0.625) 0.4748 (0.716) Right party -27.3828 *** (5.149) Right issue -21.3639 *** Right issue x Right party (7.129) 50.9016 *** (8.988) -1.0622 (12.227) Constant 42.6915 *** (3.892) 54.6254 *** (4.826) 46.7036 *** (6.039) 49.2561 *** (9.831) Observations 93 93 35 35 Issues Environment, Education, Law/order Economy Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). 25

Table 4. Effect of executive agenda-setting on issue ownership of seven issues for left and right governments across seven countries. Executive emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue a ) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government (on left issue) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left government) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government x Right Issue (by Left government) (1) (2) (3) (4) 0.3555 (0.321) -0.6071 * (0.337) 1.2366 ** (0.579) 1.7710 ** (0.763) -3.0541 *** (1.022) -0.0104 (0.487) -0.9724 (0.654) 1.7329 ** (0.847) Right government -32.1120 *** (3.085) Right issue -30.2285 *** Right issue x Right government Constant 43.1532 *** (3.838) (4.369) 60.9107 *** (6.000) 60.3710 *** (4.090) 49.3507 *** (3.553) -4.1095 (4.181) 51.5534 *** (4.044) Observations 222 222 78 78 Issues Environment, Health, Education, Unemployment, Law/order, Budget, Asylum/immigration Economy, Tax Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). a These issue differences only applies to the comparison of law/order, budget, and asylum/immigration to environment, health, education and unemployment in columns one and two. 26

Appendix Table A1. Estimation of issue ownership on eight issues across seven countries over time. Intercept (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 7.40 ** (3.43) -20.80 *** (3.46) -15.85 *** (3.44) -38.75 *** (2.58) 24.95 *** (3.35) -14.51 *** (3.35) 30.16 ** (9.81) 8.37 ** (3.98) Obs. 48 39 39 31 36 64 16 38 Issue included Economy Health Education Environment Law/order Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. Unemployment Tax Asylum/ immigration 27

Table A2. Effect of opposition agenda-setting on issue ownership of three issues (environment, education, and law/order) for left and right governments across nine countries using CMP data. Opposition emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party (on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left party) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party x Right Issue (by Left party) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 0.2210 (0.465) 0.4935 (0.710) -0.1535 (0.728) 0.1536 (1.179) -0.0218 (0.732) 0.1511 (0.896) 0.9339 (1.310) -1.4201 (1.840) 0.3466 (0.486) 0.2959 (0.771) -0.7420 (0.811) 0.7286 (1.273) 0.3016 (0.509) 0.0701 (0.784) -0.1555 (0.830) 1.0375 (1.340) 0.4520 (0.494) 0.1570 (0.761) -0.4084 (0.775) 0.5569 (1.243) 0.6312 (0.601) 0.1902 (0.887) -0.5877 (0.862) 0.4408 (1.366) 0.3585 (0.470) 0.5737 (0.795) -0.2661 (0.738) -0.2689 (1.250) 0.3617 (0.487) 0.2396 (0.738) -0.3193 (0.768) 0.4095 (1.224) Right party -30.2478 *** (5.159) -23.5238 *** (5.835) -28.1724 *** (5.272) -28.2564 *** (5.464) -25.7751 *** (5.411) -27.6571 *** (6.397) -28.3662 *** (5.265) -27.3828 *** (5.149) Right issue -24.6362 *** (6.452) -22.4864 ** (10.247) -20.2904 *** (7.279) -24.6161 *** (8.943) -19.4488 *** (7.246) -19.4967 ** (7.889) -23.7988 *** (7.511) -21.3639 *** (7.129) Right issue x Right party 51.1025 *** (8.613) 52.8360 *** (11.877) 52.7388 *** (9.359) 51.4633 *** (10.826) 49.9874 *** (9.217) 51.2749 *** (10.081) 55.1740 *** (9.225) 50.9016 *** (8.988) Constant 60.1430 *** (4.317) 53.3722 *** (5.966) 53.7007 *** (5.073) 56.6589 *** (5.326) 54.0303 *** (5.097) 51.9418 *** (5.767) 53.1301 *** (4.858) 54.6254 *** (4.826) Observations 80 77 82 78 85 78 78 93 Excluding Sweden Denmark Germany UK US Australia NZ Italy Note. Estimated for the issues Environment, Education, Law/order. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). 28

Table A3. Effect of executive agenda-setting on issue ownership of eight issues for left and right governments across nine countries. (1) (2) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) Executive emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue) -0.3521 (0.328) -0.4776 (0.346) -0.6573 * (0.339) -0.6868 * (0.386) -0.9952 ** (0.392) -0.7088 * (0.371) -0.4547 (0.403) -0.6056 * (0.337) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government (on left issue) 0.9790 * (0.552) 0.8988 (0.635) 1.2421 ** (0.591) 1.5820 ** (0.727) 1.8114 *** (0.646) 1.3430 ** (0.620) 0.8640 (0.651) 1.2904 ** (0.581) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left government) 2.3701 *** (0.728) 0.9775 (0.799) 1.8122 ** (0.765) 1.5243 (1.148) 2.0559 ** (0.878) 1.8745 ** (0.803) 1.6981 ** (0.796) 1.7816 ** (0.761) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government x Right Issue (by Left government) -3.6754 *** (0.966) -2.0716 * (1.129) -3.0001 *** (1.031) -2.8642 ** (1.453) -3.2298 *** (1.157) -3.1659 *** (1.072) -3.1009 *** (1.061) -3.2434 *** (1.026) Right government -31.3258 *** (2.878) Right issue -35.6276 *** Right issue x Right government (4.277) 68.9401 *** (5.742) Constant 62.7672 *** (3.107) -30.6200 *** (3.302) -24.9268 *** (5.001) 51.6762 *** (6.666) 58.8343 *** (4.577) -32.6550 *** (3.108) -30.7794 *** (4.387) 60.7244 *** (6.077) 60.9869 *** (4.443) -36.4557 *** (4.626) -29.8369 *** (5.763) 58.0708 *** (8.437) 62.6349 *** (4.971) -32.3404 *** (3.367) -31.6674 *** (4.939) 59.6069 *** (6.543) 59.2231 *** (4.027) -32.8169 *** (3.310) -30.8279 *** (4.629) 61.6915 *** (6.300) 60.3564 *** (4.589) -29.9454 *** (3.183) -28.4130 *** (4.446) 62.5397 *** (6.117) 59.3051 *** (4.542) -32.5591 *** (3.103) -30.1462 *** (4.351) 62.6141 *** (6.075) 60.1631 *** (4.372) Observations 202 186 217 138 188 200 204 219 Excluding Sweden Denmark Germany UK US Australia NZ Italy Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). 29

Table A4. Effect of executive agenda-setting on issue ownership of eight issues for left and right governments in nine countries. Executive emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) -0.5777 (0.377) -1.4276 *** (0.431) 0.1207 (0.415) -0.3662 (0.365) -0.6458 * (0.343) -0.6345 * (0.328) -0.5982 * (0.333) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government (on left issue) 1.2183 * (0.672) 2.4716 *** (0.816) 0.4764 (0.646) 0.8008 (0.628) 1.2159 ** (0.584) 1.2268 ** (0.562) 1.2593 ** (0.573) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left government) 1.7740 ** (0.804) 2.5566 *** (0.813) 1.1228 (0.780) 1.5088 ** (0.767) 2.6405 ** (1.328) 2.3052 *** (0.858) 1.1301 (0.808) Executive emphasis t-1 x Right government x Right Issue (by Left government) -3.0650 *** (1.111) -4.2786 *** (1.164) -2.3306 ** (1.038) -2.6248 ** (1.040) -4.1744 *** (1.545) -3.4741 *** (1.141) -2.2712 ** (1.073) Right government -32.9447 *** (3.738) Right issue -31.2105 *** Right issue x Right government (4.699) 61.5584 *** (6.549) Constant 61.3241 *** (4.629) -38.5786 *** (3.526) -33.7399 *** (4.544) 67.2529 *** (6.227) 63.7603 *** (4.218) -28.1110 *** (3.352) -28.2126 *** (4.439) 57.3811 *** (6.019) 57.6155 *** (3.875) -27.7080 *** (3.758) -26.2411 *** (4.607) 56.7360 *** (6.287) 56.6485 *** (4.652) -31.9055 *** (3.103) -32.5489 *** (5.691) 64.6579 *** (7.871) 60.9474 *** (4.088) -32.0491 *** (2.995) -33.6290 *** (5.389) 65.3797 *** (7.072) 60.4687 *** (4.212) -32.5265 *** (3.051) -27.4867 *** (4.512) Observations 181 179 193 187 177 205 210 55.5771 *** (6.322) 60.5401 *** (3.975) Excluding Health Education Environ- Unemployment Law/order Asylum/ Budget ment Immigration Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). 30

Table A5. Effect of issue emphasis by the main government party on issue ownership of four issues across nine countries using CMP data. Opposition emphasis t-1 (by Left government on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party (on left issue) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right issue (by Left party) Opposition emphasis t-1 x Right party x Right Issue (by Left party) (1) (2) (3) (4) -0.4158 0.6419 ** (0.594) (0.326) -0.4929 (0.529) 0.1313 (0.899) 1.0220 (0.973) -4.3242 *** (1.619) 0.3859 (0.430) 0.6823 (0.660) Right party -24.7997 *** (6.061) Right issue -23.0364 *** Right issue x Right party (6.982) 71.1238 *** (10.084) -18.5847 (12.946) Constant 47.5914 *** (5.542) 57.8405 *** (6.309) 35.5865 *** (8.030) 42.2340 *** (9.339) Observations 86 86 34 34 Issues Environment, Education, Law/order Economy Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The coefficients are estimated in a multi-level model with three levels (country, issue, and time). 31