Political Parties and their Policy Positions

Abstract

No matter whether one approaches political parties in terms of their functions or their goals, in both cases one has to deal with the policies parties offer. Hence, policy offerings and the resulting policy positions are central for the study of political parties. Although plenty of research on policy positions has been done, a lot of unresolved or disputable questions and problems still exist. The panel aims to look for new theoretical and methodological insights and empirical results on parties’ policy positions and stresses the following aspects. Firstly, although policy positions are fundamental for analysing parties, little is known about their origin. Where do party positions (or more specifically: electoral manifestos) come from? Beyond that, conditions and mechanisms of changes in parties’ policy positions are not well known. Thirdly, policy positions are indicated by party documents (like manifestos) and by voting behaviour. How are these different indicators related? Are policy positions in manifestos the guideline for parties’ legislative behaviour in parliament? Fourthly, positions on policy issues are used for determining parties’ stance in the political space. How do we deal with changes in the ideological ascription of policy issues over time and political space? Finally, political scientists use diverging methods and data to extract policy positions of political parties. Within the last years traditional methods have been complemented by new technologies, which allow automatic text analysis and time-saving generation of policy positions. All data and methods seem to have pros and cons and are heatedly discussed in the political science community.

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