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Abstract
This paper focuses on the principal parties' manifestos in UK statewide elections 1970–2010. It makes an original contribution by using a mixed methodology to examine the electoral discourse, issue-salience and policy framing associated with civil conflict resolution (CCR) proposals for Northern Ireland. Mandate and accountability theory suggest that party programmes may play an important role in understanding CCR. Accordingly, a series of hypotheses is tested and the findings used to advance an Electoral Discourse Model of Civil Conflict Resolution. The findings show that electoral politics matter in shaping CCR. Statistically significant inter-party differences in issue-salience and policy framing are revealed as parties seek to secure ‘issue-ownership’, influence voter preferences and secure a mandate for action. An iterative inter-party process is shown to lead to frame convergence over time, thereby providing an indicator of progress towards conflict resolution.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the constructive comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees when revising an earlier draft of this paper.
Notes
An Agreement to end the civil conflict based on two interrelated documents, a multiparty agreement by the majority of Northern Ireland's political parties, and an international agreement between the British and Irish governments, which were both signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998.
In other words, one on which opinion is united – few would argue for greater unrest. This is not to be confused with divergent issue positions on how the conflict should be resolved/the emerging outcomes.
This method tends to show declining issue-salience over time owing to the fact that manifestos of the current era are much more expansive (i.e. measured in word-length) than in earlier decades – thus the proportion of the text devoted to key topics diminishes when longitudinal comparisons are made.
Defined in terms of share of the popular vote.
Where necessary, hardcopy-only versions of early manifestos were transcribed. The software used was Nvivo 9.
Four incidences.
Chi squared = 10.4, df = 2, p = 0.00551656.
Chi squared = 12.737, df = 2, p = 0.00171473.
Chi squared = 15.469, df = 2, p = 0.0028462.
Chi squared = 40.61, df = 2, p =0.00043747.
Chi squared = 7.491, df = 2, p = 0.02362381.
Proportional representation/single transferable vote.
Chi squared = 6.82, df = 2, p = 0.0330412.
Chi squared = 17.765, df = 2, p = 0.0001388.
The correlation coefficient measures how strong a linear relationship exists between variables x and y. It is always a number between −1.0 and +1.0. If the correlation coefficient is close to +1.0, there is a strong positive linear relationship between x and y.