When political candidates “go positive”: the effects of flattering the rival in political communication

Abstract

In the field of political communication, the effects of negative propaganda strategies have been long studied. In the current work, I investigated the perceived and actual persuasiveness of an unexplored positive propaganda strategy, i.e., addressing a flattery to the rival in a political speech. In a 2 × 2 full-factorial design experiment, a fictitious candidate (a man or a woman) flattered, or did not flatter, an opponent in a political speech. Results showed that when the candidate flattered a rival s/he influenced the likelihood of being voted through source trustworthiness evaluation, irrespective of the candidate’s gender. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Flattery
• political communication
• trustworthiness
• suspicion of ulterior motive
• perception of persuasiveness

It is commonly thought that during political campaigns candidates spend more time criticizing the proposals of opposing parties, or attacking and demonizing their opponents, than valuing their own programs and ideas. Researchers refer to this as “negative propaganda” and have long studied why candidates decide to employ it (Damore, 2002), as well as its effects as a function of message type (for a meta-analysis see Lau, Sigelman, & Rovner, 2007).

Little is known about what happens when, instead of attacking a rival, a candidate flatters him or her, particularly in order to convey a positive impression to the electorate. The scarcity of scholars’ attention on the effects of flattering political opponents is probably due to the fact that, although reciprocal fairness occasionally emerges in political debates, political communications referring to positive qualities of opponents are far less frequent than attacks. However, if a candidate playing on negative personal characteristics of the rival risks to gain a negative impression by the audience (e.g., Budesheim, Houston, & DePaola, 1996), we could imagine that recognizing some positive characteristic of the rival would transmit an impression of a sincere, reliable, and trustworthy person in the audience’s eyes. A study in which a fictitious political candidate flatters the rival was designed in order to answer the following questions: What are the effects that a political candidate would provoke on the audience if s/he addresses a flattery to the rival during a public speech? Might this “positive strategy” affect the evaluation of the source in terms of trustworthiness and competence by the audience? Might this influence the likelihood to vote for that candidate?

Effects of direct and observed flattery

The effects of flattery have been studied in the context of interpersonal conversation. Generally speaking, receiving a compliment in a conversation is known to positively affect the target’s impression about the source (Gordon, 1996) and to facilitate his/her willingness to comply with a source’s request (Grant, Fabrigar, & Lim, 2010; Seiter, 2007; Seiter & Dutson, 2007).

These effects have been interpreted as the output of an attribution process. Indeed, when flattered, the recipient may attribute flattery to: (a) the source’s kindness, (b) the source’s manipulative intention; (c) the script for the situation (e.g., it is usual to compliment someone on a success), and (d) the source’s sincere positive evaluation of the target (Jones & Wortman, 1973). The results of the attributional process orient the direction and magnitude of the effect that a compliment exerts on the target (Wortman & Linsenmeier, 1977). In particular, the latter attribution increases the source’s likeability because people like to gather evidence of their own value to reinforce their self-esteem (i.e., self-enhancement motivation: see Fogg & Nass, 1997; Gordon, 1996) and tend to reciprocate liking (Beckman & Secord, 1959).

Interestingly for our purpose, the flattering remark could have an effect that goes beyond the target, as it can be expressed in the presence of other people who then form their own impression of the source. This might be the most probable case in the political domain where candidates’ messages are often spread by the media to large audiences. One main difference seems to stem from being a target vs. a bystander of a flattering comment. Contrary to what happens to the target, the bystanders could also formulate one of the attributions enunciated above in regard to the compliment, but their judgments would be formulated in the absence of a self-esteem reinforcement motivation or desire to reciprocate liking. Indeed, studies have found that, in a commercial interpersonal scenario, the perceiver questions the salesperson’s sincerity more when in the position of observer than in the position of target of the ingratiating tactic (Campbell & Kirmani, 2000). As a consequence, in comparison to the compliment’s target, observers, through inference of insincerity, tend to evaluate the ingratiator less favorably (Vonk, 2002). Unfortunately, these studies did not include a neutral control condition allowing for an understanding of whether an observed flattery, although weaker than a direct one, would be in any way more effective than a lack of comment in inducing source liking.

Taken together, these studies suggest that, in an interpersonal one-to-one context, a flattering message is likely to induce source liking in the target, but may have a weaker (or even detrimental implicit) effect on the bystanders. Open questions remain unanswered as to whether, compared to a neutral discourse, even an observed flattery might be effective in inducing a good impression of the source, and whether this may also work in a one-to-many communication context such as the political one.

Due to the specificity of the political communication, it is plausible to expect that observing a candidate flattering a rival should entail some different implications.

From interpersonal to political communication

Hypotheses about the effects of observed flattery in political communication may be generated drawing on the findings illustrated above, taking into account the specificity of this context and also considering the suggestions from studies about negative propaganda. Indeed, previous findings on flattery’s persuasive effects issued mainly from commercial interaction contexts cannot be simply extended to political communication for two main reasons. The first is that political communication is a primarily one-to-many context in which a flattery to the rival may be used instrumentally to indirectly influence the audience attitude. The second reason is that compared to marketing, the political domain is characterized by the centrality of the politician as simultaneously the source of communication and the actual “product to sell.” In this condition, the impression delivered by the source is not a byproduct of the communication, as the crucial communicative goal is that of convincing a large audience to support the source of the message in an election. Moreover, in evaluating politicians, general likeability is not the actual critical trait, as other traits, such as competence and trustworthiness, may be more pertinent to their public representative role (e.g., Abelson, Kinder, Peters, & Fiske, 1982; Kinder & Sears, 1981; Rahn, Aldrich, Borgida, & Sullivan, 1990; Wojciszke & Klusek, 1996). Indeed, perception of candidates’ competence and trustworthiness (e.g., moral integrity) appeared to be predictive of political preferences and voting behaviors, though to different degrees (Castelli, Carraro, Ghitti, & Pastore, 2009; Chen, Jing, & Lee, 2014; Funk, 1997).

In this frame, observing a candidate flattering the rival presumably does not elicit the impression of a source having an ulterior motivation, because studies have suggested that a source who argues against its interests is perceived as particularly sincere (e.g., Cialdini, 1984; Petty, Fleming, Priester, & Feinstein, 2001), and a political candidate praising the rival is apparently contrary to the source’s self-interest. Therefore, a “transfer of attitudes recursively” effect (Gawronski & Walther, 2008) might be observed. Indeed, studies about the effect of negative propaganda highlighted that attacking an opposing candidate, although possibly successful in increasing the negative perception of the target, may also provoke the so-called backlash effect, which results in a negative influence on the perception of the attacker (e.g., Budesheim et al., 1996). According to Gawronski and Walther (2008), this undesired outcome is due to the tendency to infer, through an attributional mechanism, that someone conveying negative information about other people is also unlikeable. This has been called the “transfer of attitudes recursively” (TAR) effect (Gawronski & Walther, 2008), referring to the evidence suggesting that the source of a communication induces in the observer an impression connoted as the evaluation s/he is conveying about somebody else.

If this is true for negative statements advanced by a politician (Carraro, Gawronski, & Castelli, 2010), then, paradoxically, a positive comment on the opposing candidate might be transferred recursively to the source.

For example, according to Carraro et al. (2010), this process accounts for the finding that respondents expressed a less positive explicit evaluation of a fictitious politician when he was criticizing his opponent, in comparison to when he positively described himself. We can expect the same transfer for a politician praising his/her opponent.

The present study

The goal of the present study is to investigate whether, compared to a neutral discourse, an observed flattery directed to a political rival might be effective in inducing a positive impression of the source candidate, and as a consequence, to facilitate the propensity to vote for that candidate.

To this end, I analyzed the effect of being exposed to a candidate’s use of flattery toward a rival on perception of competence and trustworthiness of the source, and self-reported likelihood of voting for that candidate. Furthermore, in order to explore whether people are aware of the potential effect of flattery, I also checked whether receivers perceived the flattering political speech as more/less persuasive with respect to the neutral one.

I formulated the following hypotheses,

Hp1. Based on the evidence of the (TAR) effect (Gawronski & Walther, 2008) in negative propaganda, individuals exposed to a message by a political candidate flattering a rival would form a more positive impression of the source than individuals exposed to the same message without the flattering statement (control condition). In line with previous results concerning both flattery (Gordon, 1996) and political communication effects (e.g., Castelli et al., 2009; Catellani & Bertolotti, 2014; Cislak & Wojciszke, 2008), I expected to particularly find such an effect on an “affective-like” dimension such as trustworthiness, rather than on the candidate’s potential performance (i.e., competence).

Hp2. As in the political domain, evaluation of candidates is such a critical aspect, I expected that flattery would exert a mediated, or at least indirect, effect on the likelihood of voting for the source candidate through the recipients’ impressions of the source (mediator).

In addition, gender stereotypes are used by voters to evaluate political candidates (Banwart, 2010), and the courtesy conveyed by flattery may also be pertinent to the gender stereotypes. In particular, women candidates tend to be seen as more compassionate and honest, while men are seen to be more competent (Alexander & Andersen, 1993; Funk, 1996; Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993; Sanbonmatsu, 2002). For these reasons, although there are scanty empirical grounds to make specific hypotheses, I also controlled for potential effects of source gender.

Method

Participants

Ninety-two Italian university students (76.1% women) aged 20–39 years (M = 24.79, SD = 3.11) were recruited through course student mailing lists. Participants gave their informed consent to complete an online questionnaire, regarding political communication, implemented on the LimeSurvey platform.

Design and procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (flattery vs. control) × 2 (male vs. female source candidate) between-participants factorial design.

Having answered three questions about their interest, information, and their participation in politics (political engagement index, Cronbach’s α = .89), participants read a passage (about 200 words long, integral text in the Appendix 1.) from a fictitious speech about the relationship between young people and politics that had allegedly been given by a candidate speaking at a public meeting during the campaign for the most recent elections. In the experimental condition, a positive statement about the opponent (I believe that my competitor, who is an upright and smart person, will agree with me about the need to change this situation) was inserted into the speech.

We pre-tested the message to check that it was perceived as ideologically neutral, and that readers could detect the flattery and its direct target. Fifteen people used a seven-point scale to evaluate the likelihood that the source of the message would be a Left-wing/Right-wing/Five Stars Movement candidate, and the extent to which the source flattered the opponent. The message was perceived as potentially coming from a Left-wing (M = 4.40, SD = 1.64), Right-wing (M = 4.00, SD = 1.56), or Five Stars Movement (M = 3.87, SD = 1.87) candidate to the same extent, F(2, 28) = .44, p = .65, and the likelihood of candidate attribution to these three parties did not differ from the middle point of the scale (according to the one-sample t-test, p range: .36–1.00). Furthermore, the message incorporating the sentence flattering the opponent was indeed rated more flattering toward the opponent (M = 4.25; SD = 2.12) than the control speech (M = 2.00; SD = 1.32), F(2, 15) = 7.70, p = .018,  = .32.

We also manipulated the name of the source candidate so as to refer either to a man or to a woman (Paolo Albertini vs. Paola Albertini).

After reading the speech, participants answered a series of questions about their impression of the candidate, suspicion of an ulterior motive, likelihood of voting for that candidate, and evaluated the persuasiveness of the speech. Finally, they reported their position on the left–right political spectrum and completed a standard socio-demographic form.

Dependent measures

Impressions of the source

Following previous research (e.g., Abelson et al., 1982; Wojciszke & Klusek, 1996), I distinguished two dimensions of impression of the speech source: competence and trustworthiness. Participants evaluated how well they thought six adjectives described the speaker on a seven-point scale (from 1 = not at all to 7 = very well). After reversing the score for the negative items, I computed two source impression indices: competence (skilled, unqualified, and uninformed, α = .60) and trustworthiness (sincere, reliable, and dishonest, α = .68). Even though the two dimensions were highly correlated (r = .55), given the different role of perceived candidate competence and trustworthiness in predicting political decision (e.g., Funk, 1997), I preferred to keep them separated.

Suspicion of an ulterior motive

In order to detect potential resistance attitudes activated by the flattering speeches, we also asked about suspicion of the source having an ulterior motive. Participants evaluated how much they thought the message was manipulative and hypocritical on the same seven-point scale (r = .55). Answers were combined into an index of perceived ulterior motive.

Likelihood of voting for that candidate

Two questions were put to participants regarding the probability of them voting for the speaker and his/her party if an election were held the following day (range 1–7; r = .89). Answers were combined to form an index of voting intention.

Perceived persuasiveness

Participants rated the message persuasiveness through three adjectives (persuasive, efficacious, credible; Cronbach’s α = .83) on the same seven-point scale. Answers were combined to form an index.

Results

The effects of participant gender, political engagement (M = 3.55, SD = 1.37), and self-reported orientation on the 10-point left–right continuum (1 = left, 10 = right, M = 5.27, SD = 2.47) were tested in all the analyses; they did not yield any significant main effects or interactions and therefore will not be presented.

Table 1 reports descriptive statistics for our measures.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for measures and intercorrelations.

	M (SD)	Correlations
		2	3	4	5
1. Perceived source competence	4.95 (.92)	.55***	−.41***	.36***	.55***
2. Perceived source trustworthiness	4.11 (1.05)		−.51***	.54***	.72***
3. Suspicion of ulterior motive	3.36 (1.63)			−.28*	−.31*
4. Likelihood of voting for that candidate	3.82 (1.30)				.68***
5. Perceived persuasiveness	3.68 (1.20)

* p < .05 level;

*** p < .001.

A first analysis of variance (ANOVA), including the flattery manipulation (flattery vs. control condition) and candidate’s gender, on the suspicion of the source having an ulterior motive revealed no significant effects (Table 2).

Table 2. Effects of flattery in a political speech on impressions of the source, suspicion of ulterior motive, and voting intention as a function of the experimental conditions (means; standard deviations given in parenthesis).

	Male candidate		Female candidate
	Opponent flattery	No flattery (control)	Opponent flattery	No flattery (control)
Perceived source competence	4.97 (.92)	4.68 (.85)	5.20 (.98)	4.88 (.91)
Perceived source trustworthiness	4.16 (.85)	3.40 (1.10)	4.71 (.88)	4.07 (1.00)
Suspicion of ulterior motive	3.61 (1.60)	3.67 (2.01)	2.98 (1.36)	3.26 (1.56)
Likelihood of voting for the source	3.65 (1.16)	3.40 (1.73)	4.34 (1.06)	3.80 (1.08)
Perceived persuasiveness	3.80 (1.31)	3.61 (1.33)	4.24 (1.21)	3.40 (1.21)

A 2 (flattery vs. control condition) × 2 (candidate’s gender) × 2 (perceived competence vs. perceived trustworthiness) ANOVA mixed design with impression dimensions as the repeated factor (Table 2) yielded the main effects of the repeated factor, F(1, 88) = 80.04, p < .001,  = .48, of the candidate’s gender, F(1,  88) = 5.81, p = .02,  = .06, and of the flattery manipulation, F(1, 88) = 8.51.91, p = .004,  = .09. Globally, the fictitious candidate was evaluated as more competent (M = 4.59; SD = .92) than trustworthy (M = 4.11; SD = 1.05); the female candidate was evaluated more favorably (M = 4.72, SD = .96) than the male candidate (M = 4.31, SD = .96); and the speech with the compliments to the opponent (M = 4.76; SD = .92) elicited a more positive impression than the control one (M = 4.27, SD = .98). The first two-way significant interaction involved the repeated factor and the candidate’s gender, F(1, 88) = 4.34, p = .04,  = .05, indicating that the woman was perceived as more trustworthy, F(1, 88) = 9.32, p = .003,  = .10, but not as more competent than the man, F(1, 88) = 1.26, p = .26,  = .01. Interestingly for our purposes, a significant interaction between the impression dimensions and the experimental manipulation emerged, F(1, 88) = .34, p = .04,  = .05, confirming that, in line with the prediction (Hp1), the flattery manipulation affected the perception of candidate trustworthiness, F(1, 88) = 12,17, p = .001,  = .17, but not his/her competence, F(1, 88) = 2.48, p = .12,  = .03. The flattery manipulation did not interact significantly with the candidate’s gender, F(1, 88) = .022, p = .88,  = 0.

The ANOVA on the likelihood of voting for the speaker showed just the main effect of the candidate’s gender, F(1, 88) = 4.20, p = .04,  = .04. Again, the respondents reported a stronger intention to vote for the woman (M = 4.08, SD = 1.09) than for the man (M = 3.53, SD = 1.45). The flattery manipulations did not directly affect the participants’ intention to vote for the fictitious candidate, F(1, 88) = 2.17, p = . 14,  = .02, as well as the interaction with the candidate’s gender, F(1, 88) = .29, p = .59,  = .00. Therefore, I tested the potential indirect effect through source trustworthiness, using Mediate, the SPSS Macro provided by Hayes (2013), and setting 5000 bootstrapped samples. As anticipated (Hp2), the analysis confirmed that the message with the flattery toward the rival indirectly influenced the voting intention through the positive evaluation of source trustworthiness (indirect effect = .23, SE = .07, LLCI = .10 ULCI = .38).

The last ANOVA on the perceived persuasiveness yielded no significant effects.

Discussion

Flattery effects have been studied in the interpersonal communicative context as a form of impression management and a persuasive tool. Despite the fact that impression management and persuasion are two fundamental goals of political communication, flattery has received scant attention in this domain, mainly a one-to-many communication context, probably due to its rarity in real political speeches.

Previous studies of the flattery influence in interpersonal relationships have shown that, compared to direct flattery, observed flattery exerts a weaker effect on the impression of the source and, subsequently, compliance (Campbell & Kirmani, 2000; Chan & Sengupta, 2013; Vonk, 2002) . However, they did not allow to appreciate whether this weaker effect was in any way significant in respect to the absence of flattery in the message. Basing the first hypothesis on the TAR effect (Gawronski & Walther, 2008), I empirically confirmed that observed flattery can exert effects both in terms of impression improvement (mainly trustworthiness), and (indirectly) induced compliance, even in a one-to-many communication context. This is a rather relevant effect considering that the effects of negative political appeals have often been observed through messages including many statements criticizing the opponent (e.g., Carraro et al., 2010).

Although the lack of a direct effect could be due to uncontrolled suppression effects (MacKinnon, Krull, & Lockwood, 2000), and future research should address this problem, the current studies provide initial support for our “positive propaganda” hypothesis that the use of flattery in political communication can have systematic psychological and behavioral consequences for citizens.

According to Gawronski and Walther (2008), due to an attributional mechanism, observers tend to infer that sources who express negative evaluation of others are unlikeable as well, and the reverse is also true (TAR effect). I argue that such a mechanism may be responsible for the flattery effectiveness issued in this study.

However, the relatively high efficacy of the observed flattery toward the source’s opponent may also be the product of the specific context in which the effect was studied. Indeed, a positive statement about one’s political opponent should come as a surprise to people attending a candidate’s speech, as politicians tend to attack their counterparts, and praising the rival is seemingly contrary to a candidate’s self-interest. Persuasion research suggests that the violation of expectations regarding what the source would argue in order to support her/his position, and in particular arguing against self-interest, provokes evaluations of source trustworthiness and message validity (e.g., Cialdini, 1984; Eagly, Wood, & Chaiken, 1978; Petty et al., 2001). Unfortunately, the present data do not allow us to disentangle these two interpretations. Future research should directly test the potential mediation role of recipients’ perception that the source is unexpectedly arguing against self-interest.

In addition, we must acknowledge that the procedure we used could hide a potential confound in the experimental treatment. Indeed, the whole sentence exposed in the experimental condition: “I believe that my competitor, who is an upright and smart person, would agree with me about the need to change the situation” was deleted in the control condition, and not only the flattery to the opponent (i.e., “who is an an upright and smart person”). In this way, we cannot be confident that the flattery per se made the message more persuasive. With this sentence, participants may also perceive that the opponent has a positive opinion about the source and the issue s/he support, thus enhancing her/his evaluation. In order to provide an initial test of this alternative interpretation, we exposed 42 different participants (31 women, mean age = 25.68, SD = 3.16, range 18–35) to the neutral message, i.e., that including the sentence “I believe that my competitor would agree with me about the need to change the situation,” supposedly delivered by the same female or male candidate. They were asked to evaluate the source trustworthiness and competence through the same six adjectives. The univariate analysis of variance performed on source trustworthiness index showed that the main effect of manipulation hold significant, F(2, 131) = 5.90, p = .004,  = .08. In particular, the post hoc test confirmed that in the new control condition, participants’ evaluation of source trustworthiness (M = 3.97, SD = .99) did not significantly differ from the previous control condition (p = .57), and was more negative than in the experimental condition (p = .025). Also, the pattern concerning source competence did not change from that found in the previous analysis, F(2, 131) = 1.91, p = .15,  = .03. The message in which only the flattery toward the opponent was deleted elicited an impression of source competence (M = 4.73, SD = 1.00) that did not differ from the previous control condition (p = .79) and from the experimental condition (p = .13). Although replications with randomized distribution of participants to the conditions are needed, these findings indicate that a simple flattery may actually induce a positive impression of trustworthiness in the eyes of the audience.

The persuasive effect of the flattering speech was found irrespective of source gender. In line with previous research showing a general positive attitude toward female political candidates (Alexander & Andersen, 1993; Funk, 1996; Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993; Sanbonmatsu, 2002; in Italy a similar result was found by Cavazza and Guidetti, 2014), respondents expressed a more favorable orientation (more positive impression and a stronger intention to vote) toward the female candidate in respect to the male one, whether or not she flattered the opponent.

Moreover, participants appeared unaware of the persuasive power of the flattering message, because their evaluation of the speech persuasiveness was unaffected by the experimental manipulation.

Some limitations of the present research should be acknowledged. I did not directly compare the effects of flattering and derogating opponents. However, as results from studies on the effects of negative propaganda have been inconsistent, for the purposes of this study it was important to compare flattering messages with a neutral baseline condition.

Still, there are some reasons to be cautious in interpreting these findings and applying their meaning. Respondents were given limited information about the fictitious politician. For example, participants did not know the party affiliation of the source, and it would be unlikely that people participating in a political meeting would be listening to a candidate whose party affiliation they do not know. Thus, the present scenario may have increased the salience of the flattering message included in the speech, or it may have induced an in-group, rather than an out-group, categorization of the candidate. Moreover, in the present study, I did not take into account evaluations of the flattery target. Indeed, one reason for politicians to be so reluctant in spreading flattery to the opponents may stem from the risk that the contribution to opponents’ positive image might outweigh their own benefits. In any case, the present analysis is a first step that requires further research efforts. Future research should investigate the political impact of flattery involving larger samples and beyond our quite minimalistic experimental setting.

Notwithstanding these limitations, I believe that the findings of the present study have several important theoretical implications, as they contribute to the literature in at least two ways. First, the present results contribute to the literature regarding the impact of flattery: they are consistent with those showing that flattery may be used for impression management and as a persuasion tactic, and they extended the extant knowledge confirming that it also exerts its influence outside of the interpersonal setting in a one-to-many communication context.

Moreover, this influence affects not only general likeability of a source, as shown by previous research, but also a more specific affective impression dimension as trustworthiness, and through it, the behavioral intention.

Second, beyond contributing to research on flattery’s effects, I believe that the positive propaganda perspective combined with previous experimental studies can provide a potentially unifying explanation for the findings on the effects of negative propaganda in the literature. Indeed, experimental research on attack strategy compared the negative messages with “positive” ones, but focused on the source’s program or qualities and traits. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first investigation suggesting that other positive political messages, including the apparently disadvantageous praise of the rival, can lead to significant consequences in terms of persuasion.

Are these messages more or less impactful in respect to personally or politically attacking the rival? Are they more or less impactful when coming from a preferred vs. a non-preferred party’s candidate? Are they more or less suitable for an incumbent or a challenger candidate? Answering these types of questions would further elucidate how and when the tone of the political message can influence audience reaction.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgment

I wish to express my gratitude to Francesca Pirani for collecting the data of Study 1, and to Michele Roccato for comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript .The author would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestion.

Appendix 1

Text of the message in the control condition

Italy ranks sixth among European countries for its high work cost, 12 points more than the general average. I want to change this reality and I want to do it, above all, in favor of youngsters like you. My main objective is to give hope to youngsters’ ideas, providing more and more funding to the many start-ups. Thousands of young people have invented their own job and we must encourage them to go on.

I want to invest in your talent, so please help me to demonstrate that believing in, and maintaining, the effort may make the dreams come true. You have to do it for those three thousand unemployed young people who see their dreams beyond their reach.

Changing the taxation system on work and incomes and simplifying bureaucracy are the required actions and the goals that I, and the party I represent, will pursue in order to create the necessary conditions to facilitate ideas’ development, and to increase youth employment and family buying power. These actions will make us more competitive both within our borders as well as abroad.