TY - JOUR
T1 - How aspiration to office conditions the impact of government participation on party platform change
AU - Schumacher, Gijs
AU - van de Wardt, Marc
AU - Vis, Barbara
AU - Baggesen Klitgaard , Michael
PY - 2015/10
Y1 - 2015/10
N2 - Considerable ambiguity exists regarding the effect of government/opposition status on party platform change. Existing theories predict that (1) it has no effect, (2) opposition parties change more, (3) opposition parties change more after several spells in opposition, and (4) parties’ responses vary because of different goal orientations. We propose that a party's aspiration to office, measured by its historical success or failure in entering office, determines a party's reaction to being in opposition or government. We hypothesize that, because of loss aversion, parties with low office aspiration change more when they are in government than when they are in opposition. Conversely, parties with high office aspiration change more as opposition party than as government party. We find evidence for these hypotheses through a pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis of 1,686 platform changes in 21 democracies, using the Comparative Manifesto Data and an innovative measure of party platform change.
AB - Considerable ambiguity exists regarding the effect of government/opposition status on party platform change. Existing theories predict that (1) it has no effect, (2) opposition parties change more, (3) opposition parties change more after several spells in opposition, and (4) parties’ responses vary because of different goal orientations. We propose that a party's aspiration to office, measured by its historical success or failure in entering office, determines a party's reaction to being in opposition or government. We hypothesize that, because of loss aversion, parties with low office aspiration change more when they are in government than when they are in opposition. Conversely, parties with high office aspiration change more as opposition party than as government party. We find evidence for these hypotheses through a pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis of 1,686 platform changes in 21 democracies, using the Comparative Manifesto Data and an innovative measure of party platform change.
U2 - 10.1111/ajps.12174
DO - 10.1111/ajps.12174
M3 - Article
SN - 0092-5853
VL - 59
SP - 1040
EP - 1054
JO - American Journal of Political Science
JF - American Journal of Political Science
IS - 4
ER -