11:20 - 13:00
P2
Room: South Room 223
Panel Session 2
Marius Saeltzer - Classifying negative campaigning at scale: A study of candidates' social media communication across eight German elections
Brian Boyle - When Office is not an Option: Building Policy Profiles in the UK’s final European Parliamentary Election Campaign
Michael Škvrňák - Media effects on preferential voting
 
When Office is not an Option: Building Policy Profiles in the UK’s final European Parliamentary Election Campaign
P2-02
Presented by: Brian Boyle
Brian Boyle 1, Sebastian Popa 1, Zoltan Fazekas 2
1 Newcastle University
2 Copenhagen Business School
What motivates candidates to run for political office is a fundamental question in political science, as who runs, and ultimately who wins, can shed light on core issues of persuasion, competition, and representation. One key source of motivation stems from the existence of office related benefits, however, we know little about how this specific incentive shapes candidates’ policy or vote seeking communication strategies, as well as how they handle intra-party disagreements during political campaigns. We exploit the unique situation UK candidates faced in the 2019 EP elections, where direct office motivations were curbed: candidates had to conduct an election campaign on short notice, with limited planning, to a body which they will soon no longer be a member of. With no meaningful term in office at stake, what motivates candidates to run in these situations? Using an original dataset of candidate Twitter communications collected during the 2019 European parliament campaign, we explore the types of issues prioritised by candidates in their online campaign messaging. We argue that such lack of direct office motivations translates into more policy differentiation, rather than vote maximization strategies. To test this, we examine changes in the patterns of Twitter communication from UK candidates, between the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections, and relying on a synthetic control design, we compare these patterns to candidates from other European countries.