When do parties change their strategy? Prospect theory predicts that people take risks to avoid losses, but play safe to preserve gains. A key concept in prospect theory is the ‘reference point’, an agent’s internal standard of performance that defines losses and gains. Parties search for a new strategy if they are losing compared to this standard. By searching for a new strategy parties try out different topics and communication styles. Therefore, we expect an increase in the number of party press releases and a change in the priority of the issues presented in these press releases. We empirically test these propositions with 32,000 press releases from 16 Dutch political parties between 1998-2013, these parties’ former election results, their opposition/government status and their expected performance based on opinion polls. To determine the topic of each press release we use expressed agenda modeling.
