Jane GreenUniversity of Manchester

Will JenningsUniversity of Southampton 

Valence and Government Priorities: How issue ownership and issue salience shape U.S. and U.K. policy agendas

Political Studies Association Annual Conference, Cardiff, 25-27 March 2013

Hypotheses

(1) Governing parties attend more to issues on which they hold a reputation for competence.

(2) Party competence evaluations have a greater effect on the policy agenda when an issue is salient to the public.

(3) Party competence evaluations have a lesser effect on the policy agenda when an issue is salient to the public.

(4) Party competence evaluations will have a greater effect for electorally unpopular incumbents (i.e. focusing on owned issues).

OR

Data from the US and UK on policy agendas and public opinion, between 1945 and 2010, coded according to a modified version of the Policy Agendas Project: Executive agendas (State of the Union

addresses, ‘Speech from the Throne’). Legislative outputs (Statutes of US Congress,

Acts of UK Parliament). Issue salience (survey data on the ‘most

important problem’). Party competence in handling issues (>5,000

poll items about the party ‘best able to handle’ issue X or trusted ‘to do a better job of handling’ issue Y).

Data

Analysis

To test the general pattern of effects of governing party competence, a time series cross-sectional model (with panel-corrected standard errors) is estimated for all nine issue topics (i.e. panels).

The base model tests the effect of each measure of party issue competence (H1) and its interaction with salience (H2) :

AGENDAit = α*0 + α*

1COMPETENCEit-c + β*0MIPit + β*

1MIPit*COMPETENCEit-c + μit

The conditional model tests the effect of party competence and its interaction with salience (H2) and popularity (H3):

AGENDAit = α*0 + α*

1COMPETENCEit-c + β*0MIPit + β*

1MIPit*COMPETENCEit-c

+ β*2POPit + β*

3POPit*COMPETENCEit-c + μit

The issue-specific effects of party competence are then also considered with this same model specification.

itc-it*1

*0it μ COMPETENCEααAGENDA

Where the rho is estimated as the first-order autoregressive process μit= μit-1+εt

Results I: pooled

  Competence Rank MIP

MIP*Competence

PopularityPop*Competen

ce

USExecutive Agenda 2.044 1.073*** -0.083** 0.106 -0.013

Legislative Outputs

4.387** 0.081 -0.005 0.639** -0.081**

UKExecutive Agenda 0.718 0.077 -0.002 0.067 -0.013

Legislative Outputs

2.691*** 0.122 -0.013 0.331*** -0.067***

*p ≤ 0.10, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 † p = 0.18

  Competence Rank MIP

MIP*Competence

USExecutive Agenda 1.197** 1.065** -0.082**

Legislative Outputs

0.347** 0.147*** -0.009

UKExecutive Agenda 0.232† 0.075 -0.004

Legislative Outputs

-0.027 -0.129 -0.014

Marginal effects: salience/competence

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

1.25

1.50

1.75

2.00

Mar

gina

l Eff

ect

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Party Competence

State of the Union - Effect of MIP

Marginal effects: competence/popularity

-5.0

-4.0

-3.0

-2.0

-1.0

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

Mar

gina

l Eff

ect

30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

Popularity

Statutes of US Congress - Effect of Party Competence

Marginal effects: competence/popularity

-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

Results II: issue-specific

Competence RankEconom

yHealth Labor

Education

Environ Law Social Foreign Other

US

Executive Agenda

27.879* 13.745 4.675 3.565 -0.337 49.186 -30.042 -33.350 -6.598

Legislative Outputs

-1.653 -5.502 4.022** -6.878 0.731 10.70823.304*

*6.126 10.941

UK

Executive Agenda 0.357 0.512 -1.699 2.229 2.712* -1.179 3.300** 5.115** 5.263

Legislative Outputs -5.634* -0.352 -0.292 2.228* 4.034 3.865* 2.826*** 1.317 11.320**

MIPEconom

yHealth Labor

Education

Environ Law Social Foreign Other

US

Executive Agenda

1.160*** 6.542*** -6.942 2.299 -1.140 -0.079 3.174 1.244** 2.620*

Legislative Outputs

0.074 0.201 1.285* -1.052 -0.822 0.347* 0.3120.316**

*-0.570

UK

Executive Agenda 0.146** 0.092 0.042 1.018 1.741 0.154 1.340** 0.021 0.127

Legislative Outputs -0.312*** 0.107 0.124 1.116** 2.124 0.224 0.349 0.158 0.003

MIP*Competence (Rank)

Economy

Health LaborEducatio

nEnviron Law Social Foreign Other

US

Executive Agenda

-0.131**-

0.659***1.269** -0.106 0.302 0.016 -0.327 -0.121* -0.306*

Legislative Outputs

-0.007 0.013-

0.294**0.162* 0.106 -0.101 -0.003 -0.028* 0.072

UK

Executive Agenda -0.009 0.01 0.008 -0.097 -0.283 0.051 -0.122* -0.014 -0.01

Legislative Outputs 0.069*** 0.006 -0.016 -0.147* -0.365 0.075 -0.036 -0.012 0.032

Results II: issue-specific

PopularityEconom

yHealth Labor

Education

Environ Law Social Foreign Other

US

Executive Agenda

3.680* 2.249 0.998 1.025 0.276 8.446* -5.932 -5.291 -2.131

Legislative Outputs -0.307 -0.713 0.685** -0.804 -0.044 2.147 0.943* 0.885 1.821

UK

Executive Agenda 0.117 0.000 -0.137 0.436* 0.303 -0.119 0.258 0.233 0.537

Legislative Outputs -0.238 -0.06 -0.038 0.332* 0.487 0.471* 0.380** 0.243* 1.483**

Pop*Competence (Rank)

Economy

Health LaborEducatio

nEnviron Law Social Foreign Other

US

Executive Agenda

-0.455 -0.215 -0.126 -0.058 0.003 -0.965 0.635 0.704* 0.262

Legislative Outputs 0.039 0.103 -0.076** 0.115 -0.018 -0.173 -0.438** -0.109 -0.244

UK

Executive Agenda 0.007 -0.007 0.043* -0.048 -0.044 0.014 -0.061 -0.100* -0.095

Legislative Outputs 0.061 0.004 0.013 -0.055* -0.106 -0.103** -0.076*** -0.031 -0.279**

Findings offer support to our hypotheses:

Parties in government tend to attend to their ‘best’ issues.

Some evidence that effects of issue ownership are mediated by salience.

Some evidence that effects of issue ownership are moderated by popularity.

But no mechanism – i.e. issue salience, issue ownership nor the mediating effects of issue salience or popularity – able to explain policy agendas across all issues and cases.

Summary

Jane GreenUniversity of Manchester

Will JenningsUniversity of Southampton 

A Party Competition Theory of Governing Party Agendas: Evidence from the U.S. and U.K.

Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, Chicago, 12-15 April 2012