In this article, we introduce an innovative approach to examining campaign themes in Italy, by performing an original corpus linguistic analysis of the party manifestos related to the crucial 2022 election. Through its systematicity and flexibility, our approach allows us to gauge theory-driven propositions using a large amount of so far unexplored textual data. As anticipated, the 2022 Italian party manifestos are characterised by a somewhat balanced configuration of emphasis across a variety of themes, of which some are more controversial and others more widely shared among voters and parties. Further, we also corroborate that parties primarily focus on those themes that historically fit them best, ideologically and in terms of perceived competence. Lastly, salient ‘issues of the day’ are differently emphasised by Italian parties, which particularly avoid devoting considerable attention to the highly sensitive Russian-Ukrainian war.

How do parties decide when to campaign on valence issues given high degrees of uncertainty? Although past studies have provided evidence of transnational emulation of parties' position-taking strategies, these findings do not directly apply to saliency strategies. Moreover, the exact diffusion mechanism remains largely elusive. Based on the issue saliency literature, this study develops novel theoretical propositions and argues that conscious learning enables parties to infer the relative utility of emphasizing consensual issues during an electoral campaign. The proposed theory gives rise to different expectations at the domestic and transnational levels because of the distinct logic of issue competition. By analyzing environmental issue emphasis in party manifestos, the authors find direct transnational dependencies and indirect spillover effects among the parties' saliency strategies. They identify conscious learning, rather than mere imitation or independent decision making, as the diffusion mechanism at work. Yet, in line with saliency-based theories, electoral competition mutes the diffusion of electoral strategies domestically.

Within the context of the economic downturn in southern Eurozone countries and the imposition of new constraints on national policy-making, this article examines the congruence between party issue prioritization, during and after the electoral phase. This is done through a longitudinal analysis of four countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) and use of party manifesto and parliamentary question data. We found that between the electoral and parliamentary arenas, parties tend to emphasize different issues. However, this occurs in different ways across time, countries, and parties. We propose a measurement of issue congruence in agenda framing between the pre- and post-electoral phases to assess to what extent elections provide a guide for public policies. Moreover, we propose arguments to explain different results in the analyzed countries and across parties. We show that the crisis magnified the capacity of the opposition to maintain programmatic coherence – a helping hand for opposition parties (including the radical ones) that succeeded in boosting the relevance of their signature issues.

How do rebel groups turned political parties adapt their ideological profiles after war? Do they continue to mobilize along the main conflict cleavage or do they adopt new issues that are conducive to peace? This article develops an analytical framework that captures the extent to which parties adapt along two dimensions: conflict cleavage issues and peacebuilding issues. It conducts a qualitative content analysis of party manifestos and related discourse of three former rebel parties with backgrounds as secessionist rebel groups: the Aceh Party, the Serb Democratic Party (Bosnia Herzegovina) and the Tamil National Alliance. It finds that while some parties adopt the language of peace settlements to legitimize themselves and actively downplay wartime divisions, others continue to seek support based on ethnic differentiation. It is argued that the programmatic message that former rebel groups mobilize around has implications for how they contribute to forging more peaceful inter-ethnic relations after war.

According to spatial models of elections, citizen perceptions of party policy positions are a key determinant of voting choices. Yet recent scholarship from Europe suggests that voters do not adjust their perceptions according to what parties advocate in their campaigns. This article argues that voters develop a more accurate understanding of parties’ ideological positions following a leadership change because a new leader increases the credibility of party policy offerings. Focusing on Western European parties in the 1979–2012 period, it shows that having a new leader is a necessary condition for voters to more accurately perceive the left–right placements of opposition parties. Voters do not use party platforms to form perceptions of incumbent parties’ positions, regardless of whether the leader is new or veteran. These results have important implications for models of party competition and democratic representation.

This paper investigates the position of social democratic parties (SDPs) towards antitrust (competition) policy. Given their traditional state-interventionist attitude and their ties with organized labour, SDPs have long been considered as not supportive of antitrust policy. However, antitrust policy’s goal of granting consumers lower prices is beneficial to salary earners. Hence, it is not surprising that SDPs’ support for antitrust policy varies considerably. To account for such variation, this paper hypothesizes that SDPs’ support for antitrust policy depends on: (a) the influence of trade unions; (b) the electoral system; and (c) the degree of coordination of the economy. Analysing in depth 16 party manifestos of West European SDPs from 2002 to 2013, we check the plausibility of our hypotheses with seven paired comparisons. Our analysis supports the hypothesis that the influence of trade unions affects SDPs’ support for antitrust policy, while the impact of electoral system and economic coordination appears less evident.