Staying on message or on topic? An analysis of candidates’ issue emphasis in Belgian election debates, 1985-2019

Which issues do parties and candidates emphasize during the campaign? This paper investigates this important question through a study of candidates’ issue emphasis during more than three decades’ worth of election debates in Belgium. Specifically, we study whether candidates stick to the predetermined debate topic (stay on topic), or whether they veer off-topic and emphasize more favourable issues that align with their core campaign message (stay on message). The study of issue emphasis is important: several scholars argue that when parties publicly discuss the same issues, this enables voters to contrast and compare their positions and make an informed choice on election day (Simon 2002; Adams 2001). However, there is ongoing debate as to whether parties and candidates discuss similar issues – i.e. they converge on the same issues – or whether they instead discuss distinct issues, focusing on their preferred issues – i.e. they pursue a strategy of selective emphasis. Although several studies demonstrate that convergence seems to be quite common, other studies suggest selective emphasis also occurs (see, e.g. Dolezal et al. 2014; Banda 2015; Damore 2005; Sigelman and Buell 2004). We present novel evidence investigating candidates’ issue emphasis during Belgian election debates and investigate the conditions that drive candidates to convergence or selective emphasis strategies. Election debates are key campaign events that reach large audiences, so studying issue emphasis during these events is critical for our appraisal of the patterns of issue emphasis. Yet, no recent studies have evaluated the competing propositions of selective emphasis and convergence on election debates. Moreover, election debates present a context of what we call forced convergence: the debate moderator presents candidates with topics to discuss in an effort to contrast and compare candidates’ positions on key issues. So, investigating whether candidates still pursue a strategy of selective emphasis under these conditions presents a conservative test of selective emphasis theory. We investigate to what extent candidates stay ‘on topic’, sticking to the issue introduced by the moderator and thus converging on the same issues, or ‘on message’, talking about their parties’ preferred issues instead. Moreover, we assess conditioning factors, particularly a candidates’ standing as an incumbent or opposition candidate, the public salience of an issue, and whether candidates’ tendency to stay on topic or on message has evolved over time. We evaluate our propositions using novel evidence based on a detailed quantitative content analysis of candidate discourse during Belgian election debates (1985-2019) that tracks the debate topic introduced by the moderator and candidates’ issue emphasis in each speaking turn of the debate. We complement these debate data with manifesto data from the comparative agendas project (CAP) to track candidates’ preferred issue agendas and poll data to track the public salience of issues.