13:10 - 14:50
P3
Room: South Room 221
Panel Session 3
Milena Rapp - The multidimensional structure of policy preferences as an opportunity for issue entrepreneurs? Evidence for West European electorates from 1990-2017
Henrik Seeberg - Do political parties’ issue emphasis influence voters’ issue priorities?
Quentin Borgeat - Potential voters as a redefinition of the issue yield strategy
Sarah Wagner - Gotta Catch ‘em All – Electoral Success of Radical Left Position Blurring on European Integration
Potential voters as a redefinition of the issue yield strategy
P3-03
Presented by: Quentin Borgeat
Quentin Borgeat
University of Geneva
The issue yield theory aims to explain the post-ideological structure of the party competition. However, considering the preferences of individuals that will never vote for a given party downplay the accuracy of the given party's opportunities. Parties can potentially identify their opportunities by taking into account individuals that they may be able to convince. I propose a redefinition of the issue yield index based on the concept of potential party voters. I define them as individuals who do not vote yet for the party but express a higher probability to vote for the party than the mean probability to vote for all parties. In a nutshell, the concept allows identifying simply people that parties can convince. I hypothesize that the issue yield model using potential voters predicts better issue yield than the original model. I test this hypothesis by using the Issue Competition Comparative Project data. This framework has implications for the definition of the issue yield and improves the empirical model by taking into account a group of voters between the median and the partisan voter. Results show that, although the original issue yield model is relevant, the redefined model also predicts accurately parties' behavior. This paper challenges the hypothesis of a post-ideological area and enhances our understanding of party competition.