Party Election Programmes, Signalling Policies and Salience of Specific Policy Domains: The German Parties from 1990 to 2005

Abstract

Parliaments and governments function as problem-solving institutions for specific policy domains. Due to the division of labour in governments, parties are interested in the stated policy priorities and the domain-specific positions of their possible coalition partners. This article investigates the coalition-relevant content of German election manifestos. Our goal is to identify policy domain-specific party positions and saliencies; we are less interested in the positions of parties on broadly defined ideological scales. Therefore, we present a new method of coding election manifestos. We partition manifestos into text corpora belonging to different policy domains by hand coding the titles the parties themselves have chosen for these sections. Section length is used as our measure of domain salience. We then estimate policy positions for these domains with the computerised content analysis algorithm WORDFISH. In this manner we estimate positions and saliencies of the German federal parties from 1990–2005. To validate our method, we compare our results with those of Slapin and Proksch and with results based on the CMP data.

Acknowledgements

This research was enabled by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES). We thank our colleagues in the project ‘Government Formation as an Optimal Combination of Office- and Policy-Motivation of Parties’: Eric Linhart, Ralf Schmitt, Susumu Shikano and Michael Stoffel.

Notes

I. Budge, D. Robertson and D. Hearl, Ideology, Strategy and Party Change. Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); I. Budge, H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara and E. Tanenbaum (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences. Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara, I. Budge and M. McDonald (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences II. Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union and OECD 1990–2003 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

D. Robertson, A Theory of Party Competition (London and New York: Wiley, 1976), pp.72–5; Budge et al., Ideology, Strategy and Party Change, pp.21–4.

Ibid., p.73.

Compare Robertson, A Theory of Party Competition, pp.73–5, with Klingemann et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences II, pp.186–90.

In 1989, the categories ‘Marxist analysis’ (415) and ‘Sustainable development – Non growth economy’ (416) were added to the standard classification scheme (see A. Volkens, ‘Quantifying the Election Programmes: Coding Procedures and Controls’, in Budge et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences, pp.93–109 at p.98).

Volkens, ‘Quantifying the Election Programmes’, p.96; I. Budge, ‘Theory and Measurement of Party Policy Positions’, in Budge et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences, pp.75–90.

These data are published here for the first time. Nicole Seher applied the Manifesto Coding Instructions (A. Volkens, ‘Manifesto Coding Instructions’ (Discussion Paper FS III 02-201, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, 2002)) and Andrea Volkens supervised this application.

For example: I. Budge and H.-D. Klingemann, ‘Finally! Comparative Over-Time Mapping of Party Policy Movement’, in Budge et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences, pp.19–50.

Klingemann et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences II.

H.-M. Kim and R.C. Fording, ‘Extending Party Estimates to Governments and Electors’, in Budge et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences, pp.157–77; Klingemann et al. (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences II, pp.124–37.

Robertson, A Theory of Party Competition.

For example, Budge et al., Ideology, Strategy and Party Change.

M. Laver and B.W. Hunt (eds.), Policy and Party Competition (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), pp.53–7.

H. Kitschelt (ed.), The Transformation of European Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

H. Kitschelt, Z. Mansfeldova, R. Markowski and G. Tóka, Post-Communist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Budge and Klingemann, ‘Finally! Comparative Over-Time Mapping of Party Policy Movement’, p.22.

F.U. Pappi and S. Shikano, ‘Ideologische Signale in den Wahlprogrammen der deutschen Bundestagsparteien 1980–2002’ (Working Paper at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, 2004).

Budge and Klingemann, ‘Finally! Comparative Over-Time Mapping of Party Policy Movement’.

Technically, Pappi and Shikano, ‘Ideologische Signale in den Wahlprogrammen der deutschen Bundestagsparteien 1980–2002’, perform a Q-analysis with the parties as variables and the categories as cases and find a first principal component with high loadings for all parties and a second component with left–right or conservative–progressive arrangement of parties. They interpret the first component as measuring commonalities of the parties concerning their view of problems confronting Germany in the respective election year.

S. Franzmann and A. Kaiser, ‘Locating Political Parties in Policy Space. A Reanalysis of Party Manifesto Data’, Party Politics 12/2 (2006), pp.163–88.

Ibid., pp.169–70.

E. Linhart and S. Shikano, ‘Die Generierung von Parteipositionen aus vorverschlüsselten Wahlprogrammen für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1949–2002)’ (Working Paper at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, 2007).

Pappi and Shikano, ‘Ideologische Signale in den Wahlprogrammen der deutschen Bundestagsparteien 1980–2002’.

Budge and Klingemann, ‘Finally! Comparative Over-Time Mapping of Party Policy Movement’.

K. Benoit and M. Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p.95.

Budge, ‘Theory and Measurement of Party Policy Positions’, p.88.

Linhart and Shikano, ‘Die Generierung von Parteipositionen aus vorverschlüsselten Wahlprogrammen für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1949–2002)’.

Ibid.

T. Bräuninger and M. Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen, programmatischen Standpunkten und der Bundesrepublik auf die Regierungsbildung in den deutschen Ländern’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 49/2 (2008), pp.309–38; M. Debus, ‘Party Competition and Government Formation in Multilevel Settings: Evidence from Germany’, Government and Opposition 43/4 (2008), pp.505–38.

Laver and Hunt (eds.), Policy and Party Competition; Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies; M. Laver, K. Benoit and J. Garry, ‘Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data’, American Political Science Review 97/2 (2003), pp.311–31.

Bräuninger and Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen’, p.332.

Laver and Hunt (eds.), Policy and Party Competition, p.124.

H.-D. Klingemann, R.I. Hofferbert and I. Budge (eds.), Parties, Policies and Democracy (Boulder/San Fransisco/Oxford: Westview Press, 1994).

T. König, T. Blume and B. Luig, ‘Policy Change without Government Change? German Gridlock after the 2002 Election’, German Politics 12/2 (2003), pp.86–146.

F. Müller-Rommel, ‘The Role of German Ministers in Cabinet Decision Making’, in M. Laver and K.A. Shepsle (eds.), Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.150–168 at p.158.

M. Laver and K.A. Shepsle, ‘Cabinet Ministers and Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’, in Laver and Shepsle (eds.), Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Government, pp.3–12 at p.8.

F.U. Pappi, R. Schmitt and E. Linhart, ‘Die Ministeriumsverteilung in den deutschen Landesregierungen seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 39/2 (2008), pp.323–42.

Wordscore: Laver et al., ‘Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data’; Wordfish: J.B. Slapin and S.-O. Proksch, ‘A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts’, American Journal of Political Science 52/3 (2008), pp.705–22.

Bräuninger and Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen’.

Slapin and Proksch, ‘A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts’.

Ibid.

Ibid., p.709.

Ibid..

Ibid.; R. Schmitt, ‘Die politikfeldspezifische Auswertung von Wahlprogrammen am Beispiel der deutschen Bundesländer’ (Working Paper at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, 2008).

Schmitt, ‘Die politikfeldspezifische Auswertung von Wahlprogrammen’, p.5.

Slapin and Proksch, ‘A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts’, p.721.

H. Bäck, M. Debus and P. Dumont, ‘Who Gets What in Coalition Governments? Predictors of Portfolio Allocation in Parliamentary Democracies’, Paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston (August 28–31, 2008); Budge and Klingemann, ‘Finally! Comparative Over-Time Mapping of Party Policy Movement’; Linhart and Shikano, ‘Die Generierung von Parteipositionen aus vorverschlüsselten Wahlprogrammen’; Franzmann and Kaiser, ‘Locating Political Parties in Policy Space’.

Slapin and Proksch, ‘A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts’, pp.720–21.

Ibid., p.712.

Bräuninger and Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen’.

Schmitt, ‘Die politikfeldspezifische Auswertung von Wahlprogrammen’, p.7.