Understanding Issue Convergence in the Context of Multipartism

The study of issue convergence is focused on how different actors in the public sphere, including politicians, interest groups, and media outlets, converge or diverge on particular issues in their messaging and communication strategies. Specifically, this research area examines how and why different actors may adopt similar or dissimilar language, framing, and strategies in order to communicate their positions on particular issues to the public (Damore 2005; Seeberg 2022). Political communication scholars often explore the role of different factors in driving issue convergence, such as changes in public opinion, media coverage, and the influence of interest groups. They also examine how issue convergence may affect public attitudes and behavior, such as voting and other forms of political participation (Baumann et al. 2021). However, research still provides little knowledge of how partisan systems tend to influence the behavior of political actors regarding issue convergence. Although Downsian spatial theory exposes how multipartisanship should lead to greater divergence, most empirical studies focus on bipartisan states such as the United States, leaving a gap in our understanding of the way in which the configuration of the supply side in electoral politics affects the nature of the public debate (Williams and Ishiyama 2022). To shed light on the question, we study issues promoted by political parties during election campaigns in Canada. We rely on automated content analysis of electoral platforms, press releases, Facebook posts and tweets to measure the visibility given to a series of issues by political parties through three campaigns (2015, 2019 and 2021). This method enables us to examine how issue convergence evolves in a democracy characterized by multipartism. This longitudinal research offers an interesting contribution to a literature aiming to provide insights on the way in which democratic societies select problems and elect governments to act on them.