Parties’ Answer to Voter Dealignment: The Record

According to democratic accountability, voters judge the incumbent’s performance – those who fulfilled voters’ standards are likely to be rewarded with another term while low-performing office-holders may be replaced by an alternative (Downs, 1957, Przeworski et al., 1999). If voters hold incumbents accountable for their past performance, the electorate’s decisions are determined by the parties’ record (Fiorina, 1981). Consequently, parties should have an incentive to prime voters with regard to it. However, despite the vast literature on retrospective voting (see e.g. Healy and Malhotra, 2013), the supply side has attracted less scholarly attention so far (for excemptions see e.g. Pomper, 1967, Benoit et al., 1998). We want to contribute to narrowing the gap and analyze Austrian parties’ campaign strategies from 1971 until the most recent general election in 2013, using new manifesto data generated in the course of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES; see Dolezal et al., 2012). By focusing on the supply side of electoral competition, the paper offers an additional perspective on the accountability function of elections. Although in Austria party membership is still particularly high (van Biezen et al., 2012), late decisions and frequent party switches indicate increased dealignment (Glantschnigg et al., 2014). We expect parties to react to these developments and hypothesize that the relative share of parties’ record references will rise over time. With the country’s economic situation being central to voters’ evaluation of incumbent performance (Lewis-Beck, 1988, Duch and Stevenson, 2008), we expect parties to particularly refer to the economic record. We analyze their strategies with regard to Austria’s economic situation, party ideology, government composition and -type, portfolio allocation, and early election.