Changing Issue Ownership through Policy Communication

• Issue ownership has been an important concept in the analysis of party competition for several decades. Traditionally, issue ownership has been regarded as a stable phenomenon where parties are advantaged by different political issues. However, several recent studies have reported change in voters' perceptions of parties' issue ownership. To investigate the changeability of issue ownership and how it can be altered, this article investigates the impact of parties' communication attempts through a web-based survey in Sweden. Two major political issues are in focus: employment and healthcare. The results show that parties can indeed improve their ownership by communicating on an issue. Indications were also found that the effects decrease as other parties simultaneously communicate on the same issue, and when those who receive the messages are ideologically distant from the party. However, in several cases results are weak. Many important conditionalities therefore remain to be explored in future studies.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

ELECTIONS

CAMPAIGNS

CHOICE

AGENDA

Political Science

LITIQUEWorld Congress of the International-Political-Science-Association

AUG 02-06

2000

QUEBEC

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)