Economic Proposals in Electoral Party Manifestos: An Analysis of the Manifestos Presented by Spanish Parties in the EU 2014 Elections

This paper analyses the proposals related to economic matters presented by the Spanish political parties with representation at the European Parliament in their manifestos for the EP elections in May 2014. The main work hypothesis assumes that the manifestos of the parties without chances of gaining a majority of votes are more specific than those with possibilities of winning the elections. A new set of codes is proposed, overlapping Manifesto Standard Classification Scheme (developed by the Party Manifesto Project (PMP), and allowing to register, not only the subject and direction of every quasi-sentence, but also its degree of specificity. Concretely, the specificity of the economic-related proposals of the manifestos (domain 4 of the PMP scheme) is assessed. Expected results would confirm our starting hypothesis, showing that the largest parties present broader proposals than those with less chances of obtaining a majority of votes.