Challenges for Estimating Policy Preferences: Announcing an Open Access Archive of Political Documents

Abstract

We provide a comparative perspective on the contributions of the special issue with regard to their applied methods and findings. In addition, we discuss problems that arise when using ‘wrong’ or at least ‘incorrect’ versions of election manifestos by presenting replications of estimated policy positions of German parties. We show that the latter can result in biased estimates that may affect the outcome of theoretical models. On the basis of those findings, we present the idea of the open access archive polidoc.net to build up a common database for political texts.

Acknowledgements

We thank all contributors to this volume for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences. Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945–1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2001); Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, Ian Budge and Michael 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).

K. Benoit and M. Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies (London: Routledge, 2006), pp.64–5.

A. Wüst and A. Volkens, Euromanifesto Coding Instructions (Mannheim: Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung Working Paper No. 64, 2003).

See A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957); S. Rabinowitz and E. Macdonald, ‘A Directional Theory of Issue Voting’, American Political Science Review 83/1 (1989), pp.93–121.

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.

J. 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.

M. McDonald and Ian Budge, Elections, Parties, Democracy: Conferring the Median Mandate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

J. Adams, M. Clark, L. Ezrow and G. Glasgow, ‘Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?’, British Journal of Political Science 34/4 (2004), pp.589–610.

T. Bräuninger, ‘Responsivität und strategische Adaption im Parteienwettbewerb in den deutschen Bundesländern’, in C. Henning, E. Linhart and S. Shikano (eds), Parteienwettbewerb, Wählerverhalten und Koalitionsbildung (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009), pp.27–46.

M. Laver and W. Hunt, Policy and Party Competition (New York: Routledge, 1992); K. Benoit and M. Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies (London: Routledge, 2006); P. Warwick, Policy Horizons and Parliamentary Government (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

Laver et al., ‘Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data’, p. 314.

Ibid.

It has also been shown that Wordscores produces extremely similar results to Proksch and Slapin's Wordfish procedure when the Wordfish extremes are selected as reference texts. See Sven-Oliver Proksch and Jonathan B. Slapin, ‘Position-Taking in European Parliament Speeches’, British Journal of Political Science 48/1 (2009), pp.58–79.

Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences; Klingemann et al., Mapping Policy Preferences II. We would like to thank Andrea Volkens for detailed information on the coding of the 1965 German election manifestos.

The Christian Social Union (CSU) is the CDU's sister party in Bavaria.

See K. Benoit, M. Laver and S. Mikhaylov, ‘Treating Words as Data with Error: Uncertainty in Text Statements of Policy Positions’, American Journal of Political Science 53/2 (2009), pp.495–513; S. Mikhaylov, M. Laver and K. Benoit, ‘Coder Reliability and Misclassification in Comparative Manifesto Project Codings’, Paper presented at the 66th MPSA Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hilton Hotel and Towers, 3–6 April 2008.

T. Bräuninger and M. Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen, programmatischen Standpunkten und der Bundespolitik auf die Regierungsbildung in den deutschen Ländern’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 49/2 (2008), pp.317–19.

Laver and Hunt, Policy and Party Competition.

Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies.

O. Niedermayer, ‘Die Entwicklung des deutschen Parteiensystems bis nach der Bundestagswahl 2002’, in O. Niedermayer (ed.), Die Parteien nach der Bundestagswahl 2002 (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2003), p.16.

For the first Bundestag election after unification, West and East Germany were considered as two electoral areas. To receive parliamentary representation, a party had to pass the 5 per cent threshold or win three seats directly in any region.

See, e.g., M. Klein and J.W. Falter, Der lange Weg der Grünen (München: Beck, 2003), pp.46–47.

See the pdf files on the web page of the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation at http://www.boell.de/alt/de/13_archiv/2297.html.

Laver et al., ‘Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data’.

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

The effect is caused by the LBG approach to rescaling the estimated party scores using a normalisation procedure that disproportionately affects parties at the extremes of the scale. This rescaling procedure is designed to mitigate the shrinking effect caused by centrist scores assigned to words found in all reference texts – in this case, junk text such as line numbers or repeated phrases found in common across texts. For a fuller discussion of the rescaling of ‘virgin’ text scores, see K. Benoit and M. Laver, ‘Compared to What? A Comment on “A Robust Transformation Procedure for Interpreting Political Text” by Martin and Vanberg’, Political Analysis 16/1 (2008), pp.101–11.

Benoit et al., ‘Treating Words as Data with Error’.

A. de Swaan, Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formation (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1973); see M. Laver and N. Schofield, Multiparty Government. The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Ann Arbor: The Michigan University Press, 1998), pp.97–103; L. Martin and R. Stevenson, ‘Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’, American Journal of Political Science 45/2 (2001), pp.33–50.

Laver et al., ‘Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data’, p.326.

See Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Str⊘m, ‘Coalition Agreements and Cabinet Governance’, in Kaare Str⊘m, Wolfgang C. Müller and Torbjörn Bergman, Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.159–99.

I. Budge and M. Laver, ‘The Policy Basis of Government Coalitions: A Comparative Investigation’, British Journal of Political Science 23/4 (1993), pp.499–519; A. Timmermans, ‘Conflicts, Agreements, and Coalition Governance’, Acta Politica 33/4 (1998), pp.409–32; A. Timmermans, ‘Standing Apart and Sitting Together: Enforcing Coalition Agreements in Multiparty Systems’, European Journal of Political Research 45/2 (2006), pp.263–83; P. Warwick, ‘Coalition Policy in Parliamentary Democracies. Who Gets How Much and Why’, Comparative Political Studies 34/10 (2001), pp.1212–36; M.D. McDonald and I. Budge, Elections, Parties, Democracy: Conferring the Median Mandate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); M. Debus, ‘Office and Policy Payoffs in Coalition Governments’, Party Politics 14/5 (2008), pp.515–38.

Some of these documents were made accessible by the Central Archive in Cologne (ZA), were the full text of the manifestos analysed by the Comparative Manifestos Project is available. Other manifestos and speeches of politicians have been collected originally by researchers named on the codebook available at the webpage. A large number of people helped us in collecting and editing those documents. We received documents from and are grateful to GESIS-ZA Cologne, Wolfgang Güttel, Marcelo Jenny, Gail McElroy, Paul Mitchell, Arco Timmermans, and Andrea Volkens. Julian Bernauer, Martin Brunner, Thomas Däubler, Christina Eder, Gunnar Flämig, Andreas Grosser, Katrin Kirschmann, Laszlo Kovats, Jochen Müller and Christine Spannagel helped us editing the documents and maintaining the website.

Benoit and Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies; L. Hooghe, G. Marks and C.J. Wilson, ‘Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?’, Comparative Political Studies 35/8 (2006), pp.965–89.

Klingemann et al., Mapping Policy Preferences II.

K.T. Poole and H. Rosenthal, ‘A Spatial Model for Legislative Roll Call Analysis’, American Journal of Political Science 29/2 (1985), pp.357–84; K.T. Poole and H. Rosenthal, Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); J. Clinton, S. Jackman and D. Rivers, ‘The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data’, American Political Science Review 98/2 (2004), pp.355–70.

C. Schonhardt-Bailey, ‘Ideology, Party and Interests in the British Parliament of 1841–1847’, British Journal of Political Science 33/2 (2004), pp.581–605.

H. Best and E.J. Zimmermann, ‘Dimensionen politischer Konflikte: Die Analyse von namentlichen Abstimmungen in Parlamenten mit dem Verfahren der Mokken-Skalierung’, in H. Best and H. Thome (eds.), Neue Methoden der Analyse historischer Daten (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae, 1991), pp.41–79.

M. Debus and M.E. Hansen, ‘Die Dimensionalität der Reichstage in der Weimarer Republik von 1920 bis 1932’, Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Vienna: Unpublished Manuscript.

S. Shikano, ‘The Dimensionality of German Federal States’ Policy Preferences in the Bundesrat', German Politics 17/3 (2008), pp.340–52.

Clinton et al., ‘The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data’.

M. Laver and K. Benoit, ‘Locating TDs in Policy Spaces: Wordscoring Dáil Speeches’, Irish Political Studies 17/1 (2002), pp.59–73; D. Giannetti and M. Laver, ‘Policy Positions and Jobs in the Government’, European Journal of Political Research 44/1 (2005), pp.91–120.

Daniela Giannetti and Michael Laver, ‘Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Governments in Parliamentary Democracies’, in Daniela Giannetti and Kenneth Benoit (eds.), Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Governments (London: Routledge, 2008), pp.3–24; Marc Debus and Thomas Bräuninger, ‘Intraparty Factions and Coalition Bargaining in Germany’, in Daniela Giannetti and Kenneth Benoit (eds.), Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Governments (London: Routledge, 2008), pp.124–45.

See G. Marks, L. Hooghe and A.H. Schakel, ‘Patterns of Regional Authority’, Regional and Federal Studies 18/2–3 (2008), pp.167–81.

Bräuninger and Debus, ‘Der Einfluss von Koalitionsaussagen, programmatischen Standpunkten und der Bundespolitik auf die Regierungsbildung in den deutschen Ländern’; L. Libbrecht, B. Maddens, W. Swenden and E. Fabre, ‘Issue Salience in Regional Party Manifestos in Spain’, European Journal of Political Research 48/1 (2009), pp.58–79; I. Stefuriuc, ‘Government Formation in Multi-Level Settings: Spanish Regional Coalitions and the Quest for Vertical Congruence’, Party Politics 15/1 (2009), pp.93–115.