jane green and will jennings universities of manchester and southampton valence politics: how...
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Jane Green and Will Jennings
Universities of Manchester and Southampton
Valence Politics: How Competence Matters to Voters, Parties and Governments
How issue ownership and salience shape government agendas
University of Vienna, 22nd October 2012
Operationalising party competence and issue ownership
General ‘mood’ in party competence evaluations (Green and Jennings, 2012; BJPolS)
Performance associated issue-by-issue fluctuations in competence; responsive to exogenous indicators
Relatively stable reputations on different issues
Issue ownership: Mean competence rating
Issue ownership: Mean advantage over other parties
Issue ownership: Within-party rank of competence
itc-it*1
*0it μ COMPETENCEααAGENDA
Democratic issue handling, 1980 - 2010
10
20
30
40
50
60
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Economy (Gallup) Foreign Affairs (Gallup)
National Problems (ABC/WaPo) Tax (NBC/WSJ)
Social Security (NBC/WSJ) Democratic Party Well Organised (Pew)
MIP (Pew) MIP (Gallup)
U.S. macro-competence, by party, 1944 - 2010
67% common variation 51% common variation
25
30
35
40
45
50
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Republican Party
25
30
35
40
45
50
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Democratic Party
Public opinion responsiveness to exogenous performance: US GDP and handling of prosperity
-12
-8
-4
0
4
8
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1944 1946 1948 1950 1952
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1952 1954 1956 1958 1960
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1960 1962 1964 1966 1968
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1968 1970 1972 1974 1976
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1980 1984 1988 1992
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Governing Party Best on Prosperity Growth in GDP (%)
Public opinion responsiveness to exogenous performance: UK NHS waiting list times
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1957 1960 1963
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1964 1967 1970
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1970 1974
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1974 1979
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1979 1983 1987 1991 1995
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1997 2001 2005 2009
Governing Party Worst on Health NHS Waiting List
Public opinion responsiveness to exogenous performance: UK NHS waiting list times
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
Best
Par
ty o
n He
alth
400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200NHS Waiting List
Fitted values gov_nhs_std
Relatively stable advantages (with fluctuation): Stability in issue ownership: UK, 1992 - 2008
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
Mar
-92
Sep-9
3
May
-94
Jul-9
5
Jul-9
6
Apr-9
7
May
-98
Jul-9
9
Jul-0
0
Feb-0
1
Feb-0
2
Sep-0
3
Sep-0
4
Feb-0
5
Sep-0
6
Aug/S
ep-0
7
Aug-0
8
Year
Net
Co
nse
rvat
ive
% a
dva
nta
ge
Law and Order Taxation Asylum Europe Vote Intention Advantage
British Conservatives’ ranking on ‘Conservative’ issues (Green, 2011, BJPolS)
Relatively stable advantages (with fluctuation): Stability in issue ownership: UK, 1992 - 2008
British Conservatives’ ranking on ‘Labour’ issues (Green, 2011, BJPolS)
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
Mar
-92
Sep-9
3
May
-94
Jul-9
5
Jul-9
6
Apr-9
7
May
-98
Jul-9
9
Jul-0
0
Feb-0
1
Feb-0
2
Sep-0
3
Sep-0
4
Feb-0
5
Sep-0
6
Aug/S
ep-0
7
Aug-0
8
Year
Net
Co
nse
rvat
ive
% a
dva
nta
ge
Health Education Economy Unemployment Vote Intention Advantage
Should parties govern on owned issues, and when?
Parties have different issue priorities; policy-seeking in office
Parties use government to enhance a reputation for commitment to issues and delivery.
“the ability to resolve a problem of concern to voters. It is a reputation for policy and program interests, produced by a history of attention, initiative and innovation toward these problems, which leads voters to believe that one of the parties (and its candidates) is more sincere and committed to doing something about them.”
Issue ownership is….
Petrocik (1996: 826)
Should parties govern on owned issues, and when?
Parties have different issue priorities; policy-seeking in office
Parties use government to enhance a reputation for commitment to issues and delivery.
Governments have incentives to focus attention on their electorally beneficial issues
Median mandate theory: manifestos predict policy outcomes
But: governments are especially responsive to problem-solving imperatives : literature on new problems and salient issues
And: issue ownership considerations should be especially influential for less popular parties in government
Hypotheses
H1: Governing parties attend to an issue more when they have a reputation for issue ownership on that issue.
H2: The effects of Issue ownership evaluations on governing policy agendas will be mediated by the salience of the policy issue.
H3: The effects of Issue ownership evaluations on governing policy agendas will be attenuated by the electoral popularity of the governing party.
Dependent variables US and UK policy agendas 1945 to 2010, using adapted
coding from the Policy Agendas Project Nine comparable issue categories in the US and UK:
economy, health, labour, education, environment, crime, social issues, foreign affairs, and ‘other’
Cases US and UK government agendas Executive agendas (State of the Union addresses in US and
Queen’s Speech in the UK) Legislative outputs (Statutes of US Congress, Acts of UK
Parliament)
Data and Cases
Main effects and mediating variables Party competence in handling issues (>5,000 poll questions
about the party ‘best able to handle’ issue X or the party trusted ‘to do a better job of handling’ issue Y
Issue salience (the ‘most important problem’) Party popularity: vote intention share
To test for lagged effects of party competence, and to deal with potential endogeneity, the measures are constructed with all available survey data from the previous election.
Robustness checks: controlling for party, using seat share for popularity, various checks on handling of missing data
Main and mediating variables
Operationalising issue ownership
Mean competence in the previous electoral cycle (level)
Between-party rank of competence in the previous electoral cycle (majority, or lead)
Within-party rank of competence in the previous electoral cycle (relative within-party advantage)
itc-it*1
*0it μ COMPETENCEααAGENDA
Analysis
Two-step analytic procedure Pooling the data and estimating effects for three separate
operationalisations of ownership Issue specific effects using the rank measure of ownership
Time series cross-sectional AR(1) models fitted using Prais-Winston estimation method to control for serial autocorrelation. Panel corrected standard errors for pooled analysis
AGENDAit = α*0 + α*
1COMPETENCEit-c + β*1MIPit
+ β*2MIPit*COMPETENCEit-c + β*
3POPULARITYit + β*
4POPULARITYit*COMPETENCEit-c
itc-it*1
*0it μ COMPETENCEααAGENDA
18
AGENDAit
Executive
(State of the Union)
Legislative Outputs
(Statutes of US Congress)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Party Competenceit (level) -0.031 (0.063)
- - - 0.021 (0.029)
- - -
Party Competenceit (majority) - -0.500 (2.207)
- - - 0.739 (0.697)
- -
Party Competenceit (ownership) - - 1.197** (0.536)
2.044 (5.331)
- - 0.347** (0.171)
4.387** (1.799)
MIPit 0.474* (0.243)
0.402*** (0.091)
1.065*** (0.234)
1.073*** (0.246)
0.047 (0.059)
0.066*** (0.026)
0.147*** (0.055)
0.081 (0.059)
MIPit * Party Competenceit -0.000 (0.004)
0.079 (0.108)
-0.082*** (0.030)
-0.083*** (0.032)
0.000 (0.001)
0.003 (0.023)
-0.009 (0.007)
-0.005 (0.007)
Popularityt - - - 0.106 (0.852)
- - 0.639** (0.277)
Party Competencet * Popularityt - - - -0.016 (0.107)
- - -0.081** (0.035)
Constant 9.350** (3.768)
7.949*** (1.868)
-0.461 (3.590)
-5.806 (42.224)
10.548***
(1.591)
11.279***
(0.912)
8.831*** (1.305)
-22.736 (14.133)
R-squared 0.166 0.153 0.219 0.224 0.410 0.425 0.461 0.282
N 265 265 265 265 281 281 281 281
Panels 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
19
AGENDAit
Executive
(Speech from the Throne)
Legislative Outputs
(Acts of U.K. Parliament)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Party Competenceit (level) 0.015 (0.039)
- - - 0.036 (0.060)
- - -
Party Competenceit (majority) - -0.035
(0.840) - - - 0.353
(1.122) - -
Party Competenceit (ownership) - - 0.232‡
(0.172) 0.718
(0.710) - - -0.027
(0.285) 2.691*** (0.966)
MIPit -0.061
(0.136) 0.035
(0.043) 0.075
(0.060) 0.077
(0.060) 0.193
(0.234) 0.039
(0.063) -0.129 (0.110)
0.122 (0.107)
MIPit * Party Competenceit 0.002
(0.002) 0.023
(0.030) -0.004 (0.009)
-0.002 (0.011)
-0.003 (0.004)
0.013 (0.069)
-0.014 (0.018)
-0.013 (0.017)
Popularityt - - - 0.067
(0.092) - - - 0.331***
(0.115) Party Competencet * Popularityt
- - - -0.013 (0.018)
- - - -0.067***
(0.023)
Constant 6.947***
(2.340) 7.857*** (1.231)
6.239*** (1.360)
3.692 (3.822)
7.674** (3.390)
9.160*** (0.056)
9.775*** (1.770)
-3.670 (5.180)
R-squared 0.049 0.057 0.038 0.045 0.199 0.180 0.195 0.207
N 394 394 394 394 376 376 376 376
Panels 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Issue-specific models: main effects for competence
Issue OwnershipEconom
yHealth Labour Educatio
nEnviro
nCrime Social Foreign Other
US
Executive Agenda
27.879+(14.293)
13.745(8.684)
4.675(6.644)
3.565(16.172)
-0.337(5.601)
49.186(30.045)
-30.042(36.211)
-33.350(20.760)
-6.958(26.390)
Legislative Outputs
-1.653(2.141)
-5.502(3.405)
4.022*(1.919)
-6.878(4.066)
0.731(1.919)
10.708(10.405)
23.304*(8.672)
6.126(4.120)
10.941(13.336)
UK
Executive Agenda
0.942(2.227)
0.590(0.416)
-1.793(1.237)
1.142(1.722)
-2.682(2.570)
-0.897(1.916)
2.960*(1.409)
6.119**(1.656)
4.725(3.574)
Legislative Outputs
-2.962(3.618)
-0.284(0.463)
0.539(1.282)
2.677*(1.069)
6.761(5.944)
4.122*(1.806)
2.251*(0.887)
1.203(0.771)
12.177**(4.462)
† p ≤ 0.10, * p ≤ .05, ** p ≤ .01
Issue-specific models: Competence * Salience
MIP * Issue Ownership
Economy
Health Labour Education
Environ
Crime Social Foreign Other
US
Executive Agenda
-0.131*(0.051)
-0.659**(0.207)
1.269+(0.735)
-0.106(0.346)
0.302(0.466)
0.016(0.131)
-0.327(0.247)
-0.121+(0.063)
-0.306+(0.156)
Legislative Outputs
-0.007(0.008)
-0.013(0.082)
-0.294*(0.131)
0.162+(0.089)
0.106(0.262)
-0.101+(0.049)
-0.003(0.072)
-0.028*(0.013)
0.072(0.065)
UK
Executive Agenda
-0.015(0.013)
0.011(0.010)
0.009(0.022)
-0.156(0.133)
-0.162(0.185)
0.068(0.072)
-0.142+(0.071)
-0.042(0.029)
-0.050(0.082)
Legislative Outputs
0.068**(0.021)
0.009(0.012)
-0.028(0.023)
-0.119(0.087)
-0.339(0.388)
0.088(0.065)
-0.047(0.054)
-0.009(0.015)
0.010(0.097)
† p ≤ 0.10, * p ≤ .05, ** p ≤ .01
Issue-specific models: Competence * Popularity
Popularity*Ownership
Economy
Health Labour Education
Environ
Crime Social Foreign Other
US
Executive Agenda
-0.455(0.275)
-0.215(0.162)
-0.126(0.115)
-0.058(0.313)
0.003(0.120)
-0.965(0.585)
0.635(0.685)
0.704+(0.407)
0.262(0.482)
Legislative Outputs
0.039(0.041)
0.103(0.067)
-0.076*(0.035)
0.115(0.079)
-0.018(0.040)
-0.173(0.201)
-0.438*(0.165)
-0.109(0.081)
-0.244(0.243)
UK
Executive Agenda
0.002(0.052)
-0.009(0.011)
0.045+(0.025)
-0.024(0.050)
0.086(0.063)
0.007(0.044)
-0.050(0.038)
-0.103*(0.041)
-0.061(0.089)
Legislative Outputs
-0.003(0.086)
0.003(0.012)
-0.001(0.026)
-0.073*(0.031)
-0.166(0.145)
-0.115**(0.042)
-0.061*(0.025)
-0.027(0.020)
-0.301*(0.113)
† p ≤ 0.10, * p ≤ .05, ** p ≤ .01
Marginal effects: US and UK
Social issues: US Crime / law and order: UK
-5.0
-2.5
0.0
2.5
5.0
Mar
gina
l Eff
ect
30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Popularity
Acts of UK Parliament - Effect of Party Competence
-20.0
-15.0
-10.0
-5.0
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
Mar
gina
l Eff
ect
30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Popularity
Statutes of US Congress - Effect of Party Competence
Robustness and validity checks
Controlling for party does not alter the significance or direction of the reported main effects or interactions No separate party effect on the State of the Union address Democrats attend more to environment issue and ‘other’ category for
statutes of congress Labour attend more to health and social issues for Queens speech Conservatives attend more to economy, and ‘other’ category in Acts of
Parliament; Labour attend more to foreign affairs.
Modelling seat share not vote share (and seat share*ownership), controlling for seat share in the vote share models, and vice versa
Alternative treatment of missing data in the construction of the rank variable, either at the median or the lowest rank positions
Implications for theory
Issue ownership theories are not just relevant to party and candidate campaigns.
Campaign strategies may provide voters with information about future government priorities.
Issue salience and issue ownership considerations are trade-offs for parties in government; this could be similar to campaign ownership effects.
Issue ownership provides a particularly useful explanation of government agendas for less popular governments.
Effects cannot be extrapolated from one issue domain to all others (as characterises some literature in this field).
Jane Green and Will Jennings
Universities of Manchester and Southampton
Valence Politics: How Competence Matters to Voters, Parties and Governments
How issue ownership and salience shape government agendas
University of Vienna, 22nd October 2012
27
25
35
45
55
65
75
8544
-48
48-5
252
-56
56-6
060
-64
64-6
868
-72
72-7
676
-80
80-8
484
-88
88-9
292
-96
96-0
000
-04
04-0
808
-12
Economy
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
92-9
6
96-0
0
00-0
4
04-0
8
08-1
2
Health
2535
45
5565
75
85
48-5
252
-56
56-6
060
-64
64-6
868
-72
72-7
676
-80
80-8
484
-88
88-9
292
-96
96-0
000
-04
04-0
808
-12
Labor Issues
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
92-9
6
96-0
0
00-0
4
04-0
8
08-1
2
Education
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
84-8
8
88-9
2
92-9
6
96-0
0
00-0
4
04-0
8
08-1
2
Environment
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
92-9
6
96-0
0
00-0
4
04-0
8
08-1
2
Crime
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
92-9
6
96-0
0
00-0
4
04-0
8
08-1
2
Social Issues
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
44-4
848
-52
52-5
656
-60
60-6
464
-68
68-7
272
-76
76-8
080
-84
84-8
888
-92
92-9
696
-00
00-0
404
-08
08-1
2
Defense
25
35
45
55
65
75
85
48-5
252
-56
56-6
060
-64
64-6
868
-72
72-7
676
-80
80-8
484
-88
88-9
292
-96
96-0
000
-04
04-0
808
-12
Other
Marginal effects: Labour issues (US)
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Party Competence
Statutes of US Congress - Effect of MIP