Field of Greens: Issue Competition Between New Green Parties and Mainstream Parties in the News

There is a vast literature on the role that the media play in facilitating or hindering issue competition between mainstream parties, but very little is known on how this dynamic affects new political parties. This article examines specifically new green parties (NGPs) as a subset, as mainstream parties are compelled to respond to the increasing salience of green issues in recent decades. We are particularly interested in how the adoption of accommodative or adversarial strategies by mainstream parties and their presence in the media affects the visibility of NGPs. We hypothesize increased visibility for NGPs when mainstream parties abandon their dismissive strategies: the adoption of green issues as a talking point for mainstream parties increases issue salience and relevance of NGPs in the media. We also acknowledge, however, that changes in NGP visibility are nuanced and dependent upon the strategic responses of both proximal (likely accommodative) and non-proximal (likely adversarial) mainstream parties. To test this, we collect national newspapers articles published in the three months leading up to election day in 7 European countries between 1992 to 2019. We performed textual analysis to examine whether NGP visibility is affected by the visibility of mainstream parties competing on similar green issues.