We focus on the structure and attention of the "party system agenda", looking at the issues parties focus on during elections. In particular, we are interested in the extend to which manifestoes features "stability" (correlation with the previous manifesto) or "overlap" with that of rivals. 3/8
We test this on cap-coded manifesto data for 7 countries over 40 years that we match with MIP data from Eurobarometers. We show that overlap dominates alternative explanations across all countries. Parties thus move together in "tunnels of attention". The appendix breaks this down into topics. 4/8
We also look at which parties matter most. We test for the systemic average, the PM party, the "nearest" party, the first manifesto published, the mean of cabinet parties and the biggest party. While systemic is not always the most important (it is in NL, IT, DK), it is always significant. 5/8
The paper also develops two case-studies. One of them focuses on the issue of the wealth tax: we look at party attention and statements (in print media) and show how the initiative by leading figures of the SPD triggered attention by rival parties. 7/8
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