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Desperate Needs, DesperateDeeds: Why Mainstream PartiesRespond to the Issues of NichePartiesMarc van de WardtPublished online: 27 Aug 2014.
To cite this article: Marc van de Wardt (2015) Desperate Needs, Desperate Deeds: WhyMainstream Parties Respond to the Issues of Niche Parties, West European Politics, 38:1,93-122, DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2014.945247
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Desperate Needs, Desperate Deeds:Why Mainstream Parties Respond tothe Issues of Niche Parties
MARC VAN DE WARDT
This study explores agenda-setting dynamics between mainstream and niche parties ontwo issues owned by niche parties: immigration and European integration. It proposesan analytical distinction between opposition and government parties to understandwhich mainstream parties will engage in dialogue on these issues. Building on prospecttheory, mainstream opposition parties (MOPs) are expected to be risk-acceptant andinclined to follow the agenda of niche competitors. Conversely, mainstream governmentparties (MGPs) are risk-averse, will systematically ignore shifts in the agenda of nicheparties and only increase their attention in response to MOPs. Time-series analysesbetween 1974 and 2003 on the case of Denmark confirm the hypotheses.
Many Western European countries have experienced a rise of ‘niche parties’(i.e. radical right, radical left and Green parties (Adams et al. 2006)) thatemphasise ‘new’ issues such as immigration, European integration and theenvironment (Meguid 2005).1 While responding to these issues has led to con-siderable electoral gains for some mainstream parties, other mainstream partieshave been punished electorally or suffered even further negative consequencessuch as internal rifts. Examples include the issue of immigration for the DanishSocial Democrats (Bale et al. 2010), or the issue of European integration forthe French Socialist Party (Ivaldi 2006). This article explores why somemainstream parties are prepared to take the electoral risk of responding toniche parties on these issues.
This question contributes to the scarce research on ‘issue trespassing’examining when parties engage in dialogue on issues associated with a rival(Damore 2004; Holian 2004; Sigelman and Buell 2004; Walgrave et al. 2009),and to the on-going debate on the responses of mainstream parties to issuesowned by niche parties (e.g. Bale et al. 2010; Green-Pedersen 2012; Meguid2005, 2008). While existing studies provide valuable insight into how
Correspondence Address: [email protected]
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
West European Politics, 2015
Vol. 38, No. 1, 93–122, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2014.945247
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mainstream parties could respond to these issues (e.g. Bale et al. 2010; Meguid2005), this study offers a causal mechanism that further explains the variationbetween mainstream parties in their likelihood of responding. Adapting elementsof Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) prospect theory to political decision-making,I propose an analytical distinction between mainstream opposition parties(MOPs) and mainstream government parties (MGPs) (see also de Vries andHobolt 2012; van de Wardt et al. 2014, forthcoming). MOPs are expected to berisk-acceptant because of their membership in the opposition and to be morelikely to follow shifts in the agenda of their niche competitors. Conversely,MGPs are inclined to be risk-averse and will be reluctant to respond.Nevertheless, they are expected to react when the issue is brought forward byMOPs, suggesting that niche parties have an indirect effect on MGPs. Thesetheoretical propositions are empirically substantiated through time-series modelsexamining the agenda-setting dynamics between MOPs, MGPs and niche partiesfor the 1974–2003 period in the Danish parliament on the issues of immigrationand European integration.
The next section outlines the theoretical framework and hypotheses afterwhich peculiarities of the Danish case are further elaborated. Then choicesregarding the measurement of concepts, statistical methods and model speci-fications are discussed. After presenting the results, I conclude by address-ing the implications of the findings and pointing to directions for futureresearch.
Theory and Hypotheses
There are several definitions of niche parties in the literature. The concept wasintroduced by Meguid (2005: 347–48), who describes niche parties as partiesthat ‘reject the traditional class-based orientation of politics’ and raise newissues that ‘are not only novel, but … often do not coincide with existing linesof political division’. Niche parties also ‘differentiate themselves by limitingtheir issue appeals’. According to Meguid (2005: 251), the most commonniche parties are environmental and radical right parties. Alternatively, Adamset al. (2006: 513) define niche parties as those parties that present a non-centrist ideology such as Communist, Green, and extreme nationalist partyfamilies’. This study adopts the definition of Meguid (2005, 2008), but focuseson a broader set of niche parties. The reason for doing so is that unlikeMeguid’s important work that considers mainstream parties’ strategic responseson immigration and environmental issues, this study also explores theirresponses on the issue of European integration. This issue is included sinceaccording to many scholars, European integration is the clearest example of anissue that does not ‘coincide with existing lines of political division’ (cf.Hooghe et al. 2002; Kriesi et al. 2008; Taggart 1998; van der Burg and vanSpanje 2009), making it a niche party issue par excellence according toMeguid’s definition. Yet, opposition to the EU is not only mobilised by the
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radical right and Green parties, but also by the radical left (cf. Kriesi et al.2008; Taggart 1998). Therefore, this study classifies Green, radical right andradical left parties as niche parties.2
In line with the logic of issue competition, niche parties selectively empha-sise their preferred issues while de-emphasising those associated with theiropponents (Budge and Farlie 1983). To survive, they seek to establish ‘associa-tive’ and ‘competence issue ownership’. Associative ownership implies that theelectorate associates a party with an issue, which is a consequence of long-term party attention, while a party gains competence-based ownership when itis considered to be competent in handling the issue (Walgrave et al. 2012).From a dynamic perspective the question becomes: when will mainstream par-ties increase their attention on niche party issues? Notwithstanding their rele-vance, previous studies have mainly focused on how mainstream parties mayreact. First, mainstream parties could opt for an ‘accommodative strategy’, thatis, increasing their emphasis on the issue combined with a more similar posi-tion. Meguid (2005) argues that such a strategy is likely to undermine the dis-tinctiveness of the niche party’s issue position and to enable mainstreamparties to run away with the issues, which reduces niche party electoral sup-port. Second, increased attention can be combined with opposing positions, aso-called ‘adversarial strategy’, which is expected to reinforce the issueownership of the niche party at the expense of mainstream parties located nearthe niche party (Meguid 2005). Third, mainstream parties can pursue a ‘dismis-sive strategy’, i.e. ignore the issue (Green-Pedersen 2012; Meguid 2005).Green-Pedersen (2012: 125) argues that mainstream parties will adopt such astrategy if new issues have negative consequences for coalition formation andif they offer little electoral benefit. In his words, ‘new issues can become polit-icized, [only] if mainstream parties find it attractive to do so’.
Thus far, little attention has been devoted to the question of which main-stream parties will respond to niche parties. To date, the most fundamentalwork in this area is Meguid’s (2008) theory of strategic choice. Whether amainstream party will increase its attention to a niche party issue cruciallydepends on the electoral threat posed by the niche party and the strategy of itsmost important mainstream competitor. A mainstream party will employ anaccommodative strategy if the niche party poses a bigger electoral treat to itselfthan to its mainstream opponent. When this is the other way around, however,it will adopt an adversarial strategy to further boost support for the niche partyat the expense of its rival.
Meguid (2008: 104), however, acknowledges that ‘knowledge of the mostrational strategy for improving a party’s relative electoral strength and alteringniche party support does not always ensure adoption of that tactic’. She arguesthat this is due to the potential costs of these tactics. Elite factionalism, lowlevels of leadership autonomy, and the need for policy consistency may explainwhy some mainstream parties decide not to respond to niche parties. Impor-tantly, Meguid’s (2008: 94) contribution rests on the assumption that main-stream parties as utility maximisers are perfectly knowledgeable and ‘choose
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tactics that will maximize their benefits while minimizing their costs’. Thus,whether a mainstream party finds itself in office or opposition fails to matter.Yet, as will be explained below, issue trespassing entails considerable risks.Contrary to theories of utility maximisation, behavioural theories suggest thatunder uncertainty actors are only likely to adopt new strategies when their per-formance is below a certain reference point (cf. Bendor et al. 2011; Kahnemanand Tversky 1979). This study conceptualises issue trespassing as a strategyinvolving risk, and by means of insights derived from prospect theory it offersa causal mechanism explaining which mainstream parties will issue trespass.
Issue Trespassing as Risk
In her important work, Meguid (2005) argues that issue ownership automati-cally transfers to the mainstream party if the party pursues an accommodativetactic. Because of its greater legislative experience and better access to voters,‘the established party copy will be perceived as more attractive than the nicheparty original’ (Meguid 2005: 349). This reasoning suggests that issue trespass-ing leads to electoral success for mainstream parties. Yet, I assume that issuetrespassing also has the potential to subtract more votes than it adds. Why isthat so? First, it is easier to claim ownership over ‘free floating issues’ thanthose that are already firmly owned (Kaplan et al. 2006; Petrocik 1996;Walgrave et al. 2009: 169). Given that niche parties are traditionally associatedwith issues such as immigration and European integration (Meguid 2005), itwill thus be rather difficult for mainstream parties to run away with niche partyissues. Second, Walgrave and co-authors (2009) have shown that parties willonly succeed in stealing owned issues when the original owner does notdirectly reclaim the issue. Third, issue trespassing can backfire, as it comes atthe price of addressing the issues that a party owns itself (Kaplan et al. 2006;Petrocik 1996). Thus, mainstream parties risk accentuating the niche competi-tor’s strength rather than their own. Moreover, they may alienate segments oftheir electorate or factions within the party because they may lack credibilityto claim ownership over issues such as immigration and European integration.Therefore, the relevance of government–opposition status in explaining issuetrespassing begins with the fundamental assumption that this strategy nevercomes with the prospect of sure rewards but rather that such a strategyinvolves risk.3
In understanding when actors make risky decisions, one key insight ofprospect theory is particularly relevant, namely that actors become risk-accep-tant if a particular outcome is framed as a loss compared to a reference point;conversely, they become risk-averse if the outcome is framed as a gain relativeto this reference point (Kahneman and Tversky 1979, 1984). Using questionwording experiments, Kahneman and Tversky (1979, 1984) have shown that ifthe ‘domain of losses’ is activated by framing a particular decision as a meansto avoid sure losses, respondents will prefer a gamble over sure losses. Yet,
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when the exact same policy is presented as a means to consolidate sure gains,people will opt for a risk-averse choice. A first critique of prospect theory isthat the ‘aggregation problem’ arises when prospect theory is extended toexplain the behaviour of collective actors, such as political parties. Yet, experi-ments, meta-analyses and real-world data in a variety of disciplines haveshown that groups display the same pattern of risk attitudes as individuals (fora discussion see Vis 2011). Whyte (1993) has even found that behavioural con-sequences are stronger at the group level. Against the backdrop of this study, asecond and more important critique is that prospect theory is ‘a reference-dependent theory without a theory of the reference point’ (Mercer 2005: 4).Put differently, prospect theory provides no insight into how actors locatethemselves in a domain of gain or loss. As such, the literature discussingthe use of prospect theory in political science suggests that one could use thestatus quo as a reference point for determining a political actor’s domain(McDermott 2004; Mercer 2005; Vis 2011).
Thus, to examine when mainstream parties will engage in risky strategiessuch as issue trespassing, we must identify their reference point. In the litera-ture mainstream parties are defined as ‘typically government actors’ (Meguid2005: 352), or parties ‘that regularly alternate between government and opposi-tion’ (de Vries and Hobolt 2012: 250). Therefore, this study assumes thatmainstream parties’ reference point is office membership, implying that main-stream parties in government find themselves in the domain of gains, whilethose in opposition are in the domain of losses. Against this backdrop, it mustbe noted that other research has focused on a party’s electoral performance interms of votes (cf. Somer-Topcu 2009). This study, however, only seeks toexplain change within a subset of parties, namely those aspiring to obtainoffice. Considering that the effect of electoral strength on bargaining powermay be quite unpredictable in multiparty systems – as the number of politicalparties increases, the ‘complexities of strategic interaction multiply’ (Müllerand Strøm 1999: 23) – office inclusion/exclusion is a better indicator for amainstream party’s domain.4
Analogous to de Vries and Hobolt (2012), I therefore distinguish betweenmainstream opposition and mainstream government parties (see also van deWardt et al. 2014, forthcoming). MGPs inhabit political office, while MOPshave governed in the past but currently find themselves in opposition. Yet, deVries and Hobolt (2012) also identify a third type of party: challenger parties,which are those that have never governed. As this study examines which main-stream parties –be they MOPs or MGPs – engage in dialogue with nicheparties, it is important to note that not every challenger party is a niche partybecause never having governed does not automatically imply ownership overthe immigration or EU issue. Hence, as can be seen from the typologypresented in Figure 1, I distinguish between niche party challengers (upperright quadrant) and other challenger parties. Niche party challengers (NPCs)have never been in office and according to Meguid’s (2005: 251) definitionthey ‘reject the traditional class-based orientation of politics’. Thus, NPCs are
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the usual suspects to demand attention for new issues like immigration andEuropean integration that ‘are not only novel, but … often do not coincidewith existing lines of political division’, while the category ‘other challenger’is not relevant within the boundaries of this study. It should be acknowledgedthat absence of office experience is not a defining characteristic of niche parties(see Adams et al. 2006; Meguid 2005, 2008), which is the reason why in theremainder of the article I speak of niche party challengers.
A consequence of using the framework proposed by de Vries and Hobolt(2012) is that parties cease to be niche parties once they have governed.Therefore, the upper left cell in the typology is empty. This can be justified byWagner’s (2012) important critique that niche party status should not be treatedas a fixed characteristic because niche parties could become mainstream.According to de Vries and Hobolt (2012), parties will become reluctant tointroduce policy issues that do not reinforce existing lines of political division– a strategy they label ‘issue entrepreneurship’ but which also constitutes thecore of being a niche party – after they have governed. The reason is that issueentrepreneurship most likely jeopardises their future coalition potential. Thus,niche parties are likely to opt for a more mainstream issue profile in responseto office inclusion. Furthermore, government participation is likely to makeniche ideas more mainstream. In terms of Meguid’s (2005) framework, a nicheparty will become mainstream if the mainstream parties prioritise its issuedimension by taking either an accommodative or adversarial stance (see alsoWagner 2012). For instance, by governing with Green and radical right-wingniche parties, Bale (2003) argues that the Social Democrats and mainstreamright included their issues in the mainstream political debate.5 However, sincethroughout the sample period no niche party gained office, the theoreticalassumption that they become mainstream after having governed had noempirical consequences.
FIGURE 1PARTY TYPOLOGY
Note: The above figure combines the frameworks of de Vries and Hobolt (2012) and Meguid (2005) into a singletypology. ‘O’ denotes in opposition, ‘G’ in government. The ‘X’’s denote that a combination is logically impossi-ble, while the upper left cell is left empty for theoretical reasons explained below.
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Turning back to the research question of which mainstream parties willrespond to niche parties, the distinction between MOPs and MGPs is crucial.Because of their current position in office, one could argue that governing par-ties find themselves in a domain of gains and will thus behave in a risk-aversemanner. MOPs, in contrast, have governed in the past but currently findthemselves in opposition. Exactly because the principle of reference pointadaptation, which can be considered a supplement to prospect theory, predictsthat actors are rather slow to assimilate losses into their reference point (Arkeset al. 2008), I assume that MOPs will perceive their membership in the opposi-tion as a loss. Hence, they will behave in a risk-acceptant way. This explainsnot only why the Danish mainstream right increased its attention on immigra-tion after losing office in the 1993 elections (Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup2008) but also why parties with less evident electoral interest in the issue, suchas the Dutch Social Democrats, pursued accommodation strategies when theywere excluded from government (Bale et al. 2010). An EU-based example isthe accommodative strategy pursued by the French Socialist Party after it lostoffice in the 2002 presidential elections (Ivaldi 2006). Because of theirmembership in the opposition, MOPs are thus expected to issue trespass.Alternatively, government parties find themselves in the domain of gains andare unlikely to confront NPCs on issues that they do not own. The abovereasoning can be summarised in the following two hypotheses:
H1: MOPs will increase the salience of niche party issues in response togreater issue emphasis by NPCs, all else being equal.
H2: The salience of niche party issues among MGPs is not influenced bythe issue emphasis of NPCs, all else being equal.
The hypotheses proposed above raise the question of whether governmentparties will always ignore niche party issues. While government parties arerisk-averse and unlikely to engage in dialogue with NPCs, they may respondwhen niche party issues are mobilised by MOPs. First, it may be easier toobtain issue ownership in response to other non-owners rather than in responseto the NPC itself, making issue trespassing less risky. Second, governingparties are expected to provide policy solutions for the important issues of theday (Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010), and, as such, they may view theincreased attention of other mainstream parties as a cue that niche party issueshave become legitimate themes that can no longer be ignored. Following thislogic, NPCs would exert an indirect agenda-setting effect on the agenda ofgoverning parties: MOPs raise their attention on an issue in response to NPCs,while government parties do so in response to MOPs. This hypothesiscompletes the proposed sequence of politicisation:
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H3: MGPs will increase the salience of niche party issues in response togreater issue emphasis by MOPs, all else being equal.
Issue Characteristics and Risk
While issue trespassing always involves electoral risks, doing so can alsoendanger future coalition formation. Prior research has shown that party posi-tioning on EU integration follows an inverted U curve in the member states,implying that opposition comes from parties from the left and right, while par-ties in the centre support European integration (Hooghe et al. 2002). Becausemainstream parties usually form their coalitions along the left–right dimension,trespassing on European integration comes with the additional risk of endan-gering future coalition formation. In the words of Schattschneider (1960:63–71), ‘the substitution of conflicts is the most devastating political strategy… in which friends become enemies and enemies become friends in a generalreshuffle of relations’. Moreover, issues that do not correspond to positions onthe dominant dimension are often ‘wedge issues’ that divide parties internally(van de Wardt et al. 2014). Finally, the EU issue is a multidimensional issuethat can be framed in multiple ways, for instance from an economic, politicalor cultural angle (Helbling et al. 2010), introducing even more uncertainty formainstream parties regarding the electoral consequences of politicisation(Green-Pedersen 2012). In turn, there is strong empirical evidence that theimmigration issue has become aligned along the left–right structure of WesternEuropean party systems, in which a more right-wing position corresponds to amore restrictive stance towards immigrants (van der Brug and van Spanje2009). Consequently, issue trespassing on immigration probably entails lesscost for mainstream parties, which leads to the final hypothesis:
H4: The agenda-setting effect of NPCs on MOPs is larger on the issueof immigration than on the issue of European integration.
Alternative Explanations
To rule out spurious relationships between party agendas, I control for shifts inthe prominence of the issues of immigration and European integration in thepublic agenda, as previous research on dynamic representation has demon-strated that politicians are sensitive to such shifts (cf. Hobolt and Klemmemsen2005; Page and Shapiro 1983; Wlezien 1996). Furthermore, I examine theimpact of changes in the yearly number of newly arriving immigrants, the netcosts of EU membership and key events such as 9/11 and EU referenda.Although the importance of these alternative explanations has been mentionedin the literature (cf. Green-Pedersen 2007), there have been few effortsto examine the joint impact of political and societal explanations ofpoliticisation.6
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Case Selection
The hypotheses are tested on data for Denmark on the politicisation of theissues of immigration and European integration for the period between 1974and 2003. Obviously, NPCs have mobilised more than just these issues, butfor the sake of parsimony, only immigration and European integration wereselected. The first issue provides a typical case of a niche party issue that hasgradually come to fit the left–right dimension quite well (e.g. the environment,law and order), while European integration constitutes the clearest example ofone that has not (van der Brug and van Spanje 2009).7 Considering the nega-tive implications for coalition formation, European integration may thus beseen as a least likely case in which mainstream parties would engage in issuetrespassing.
The Danish Case
Denmark has a multiparty system with about eight parties represented in parlia-ment. The NPCs on the left (Unity List, Left Socialist Party and the Socialist’sPeople’s Party) and right (Progress Party and Danish People’s Party) haveremained in opposition throughout the sample period, while office has alter-nated between a social democratic- and bourgeois-led bloc.
For several reasons the Danish case offers an excellent testing ground forthe hypotheses. First, stable bloc competition and the inclusion of right- andleft-wing NPCs minimises the confounding impact of ideology, e.g. that onlymainstream right MOPs respond to radical right NPCs. Second, niche partieshave remained in opposition throughout the sample period, which is importantbecause MGPs are unlikely to ignore their issue appeals, as H2 posits, whenthey would be governing together.8 Third, at least the Danish People’s Partyand Progress Party (during the 1970s and 1980s) pose significant electoraltreats, making it plausible that MOPs and indirectly MGPs would respond totheir issues. Fourth, the focus on a single country offers the opportunity tocontrol for unobserved institutional characteristics that may bias party agenda-setting effects in a comparison of multiple countries. Finally, in contrast toother Western European countries, the Danish case offers rich data on parlia-mentary agenda-setting and widely available public opinion data, making itpossible to trace inter-party agenda-setting dynamics for a long time span whilecontrolling for societal explanations.
Data and Operationalisations
The hypotheses were examined by using annual data for the period from 1974to 2003. The salience of immigration and European integration among politicalactors was derived from a dataset on parliamentary activities.9 Given that non-legislative activities are the opposition’s ultimate weapon to foster attention ontheir issues (Green-Pedersen 2010), the issue emphasis of MOPs and NPCs
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was determined by their yearly percentage of parliamentary questions. Specifi-cally, questions were selected because of their abundant supply and the clearpartisan trend identified in their content (Green-Pedersen 2010), which over-comes the potential problem associated with questions being asked by individ-ual MPs. In turn, declarations of government speeches delivered at the openingof each parliamentary year were used to measure the issue attention of govern-ment parties.10 This measure was used for several reasons. First, governingparties rarely put forward questions in Denmark (Green-Pedersen andMortensen 2010), making it unreliable to calculate the salience of immigrationand European integration relative to 236 other issues on the basis of so fewquestions (sometimes fewer than 10 per year). Second, influential studies onagenda-setting have operationalised the issue priorities of governing parties byusing exactly the same speeches (cf. Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010;Hobolt and Klemmemsen 2005; John et al. 2006) on the basis of the argumentthat advantages include that these speeches provide information on the inten-tions of government as a whole rather than individual members (Hobolt andKlemmemsen 2005); that governments address all issues deemed to beimportant in such declarations, enabling the relative salience of issues to bemeasured; and, finally, that the format of these speeches is very similar overtime, making them very suitable for longitudinal research. For each year, thepercentage of sentences devoted to the issue of European integration andimmigration issue was calculated.11
How to identify issue owners? Meguid (2005: 351) argues that radical rightand Green parties constitute the ‘most common set of niche parties’. Meguid’sresearch, however, does not focus on the EU issue, while many studies haveargued that an anti-EU stance has also been mobilised by the radical left (cf.Kriesi et al. 2008; Taggart 1998). This also applies to the particular case ofDenmark. Green-Pedersen (2012: 123) argues that ‘during the 1970s and 1980s,opposition to European integration came from the parties to the left of the SocialDemocrats [while] in the 1990s, left-wing opposition was very clear from theextreme left Red–Green Alliance’. ‘From the early 1990s EU opposition alsodeveloped within extreme right-wing parties, starting with the Progress Party andbecoming much more pronounced in the Danish People’s Party established in1995’ (Green-Pedersen 2012: 123). Consequently, I follow Meguid (2005) inoperationalising radical right parties as owners of the immigration issue, but radi-cal right, Green and radical left parties as those owning the EU issue.12 None ofthese parties has governed throughout the sample period, which is consistent withthe definition of niche party challengers employed in this study.
Analogous to Meguid (2005, 2008), this study identifies niche parties onthe basis of party family membership.13 Yet, for various reasons it employs adifferent procedure to classify mainstream parties. Meguid (2005, 2008)focuses on their left–right positions and vote shares, and ultimately identifiesno more than one mainstream right and one mainstream left party. Yet, theremay exist more than two mainstream parties in a party system, which isacknowledged by Adams et al. (2006) who operationalise the Labour,
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Socialist, Social Democratic, Liberal, Conservative and Christian Democraticparty families as mainstream parties. Instead of adopting the aforementionedclassification, however, this study operationalises mainstream parties on thebasis of previous office experience to more adequately gauge their definition as‘typically government actors’ (Meguid 2005: 352) or parties that ‘routinelyalternate between government and opposition’ (de Vries and Hobolt 2012:250). Parties’ aspiration levels towards a certain good, in this case office, canbe expected to adapt dynamically to their past performance of acquiring thatgood (Bendor et al. 2011). Hence, previous office experience is a better proxyfor a party’s aspiration to office than its left–right position or party family.Note, however, that the resulting case selection almost perfectly overlaps withthe procedure proposed by Adams et al. (2006). Moreover, robustness checks(see online appendix) demonstrated that the hypotheses of this study are alsoconfirmed if the Adams et al. classification approach of niche/mainstreamparties on the basis of party family is employed.
Consistent with de Vries and Hobolt (2012), a party was classified as aMGP if it was currently governing and as a MOP if it was in opposition buthad participated in a previous coalition. The idea that a party becomes main-stream after it has governed is intuitive because research on reference pointadaptation has shown that actors shift their reference point upward in responseto positive outcomes (Arkes et al. 2008); thus, a party is more likely to aspireto obtain office in the future after it has governed. Unlike de Vries and Hobolt(2012), this study also considers that parties shift their reference point down-wards in response to consecutive office exclusion (Arkes et al. 2008). As such,the Danish Communist and Justice parties were not coded as MOPs. The com-munists only governed in the first post-war cabinet, while the Justice Party lostparliamentary representation for 13 consecutive years after its last term inoffice in 1957–60. In both cases it is highly unlikely that office was still theirreference point at the beginning of the sample period (1973). After excludingboth parties, the resulting case selection (see Appendix 1) also more closelymatched the description of mainstream parties as ‘typically government actors’(Meguid 2005: 352) or parties that ‘routinely alternate between governmentand opposition’ (de Vries and Hobolt 2012: 250).14
Regarding the controls, the salience of the issue of immigration/Europeanintegration on the public agenda was determined by the percentage of peoplementioning the issue as being important relative to the total number of issuesmentioned by all respondents.15 In the relatively few years that this questionwas unavailable, the Amelia 2 program for multiple imputation was used to fillin missing values (Honaker and King 2010; King et al. 2001). The yearlynumber of newly arriving immigrants was measured in tens of thousands,16
while the Danish net EU contribution was calculated by subtracting yearlycosts from the benefits of membership relative to the country’s GDP.17 Finally,dummy variables capture the abrupt impact of 9/11 and EU referendums.Appendix 1 provides an overview of the selected parties and public opinionsurveys.
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Statistical Approach
Vector Auto Regression (VAR) modelling was used to address simultaneity.The advantage of a VAR is that this technique simultaneously estimates theequations for each of the endogenous dependent variables – e.g. althoughNPCs are hypothesised to shape the agenda of MOPs, this leaves open the pos-sibility for causality to run in the opposite direction.
Two models were specified: one examining agenda-setting on immigrationand one examining agenda-setting on European integration. The first keyassumption in the model building process is that variables need to be station-ary. Because augmented Dickey Fuller tests revealed that many of the seriesonly became stationary after first differencing, all series were differenced tofacilitate interpretation of the results. The second step involves the selection ofthe appropriate lag length, which is typically done by estimating the modelusing a maximum number of lags based on the theoretical premise, droppinglags that are not statistically significant one by one, and accepting the model ifthe residuals show no autocorrelation (cf. Asteriou and Hall 2007). Notwith-standing that prior studies have assumed that agenda-setting effects take placewithin a year (Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010; Hobolt and Klemmemsen2005), the inclusion of a second lag was necessary to eliminate autocorrela-tion.18 As will be shown, the second lag does not imply that agenda-settingeffects will only take place after two years but rather captures the idea that par-ties find issues important today because they did so in the past (e.g. because ofideological preferences or coalition deals). The VAR can be represented by thefollowing simultaneous equations:
DMGPt ¼ b0 þ b1ðDMGPt� 1Þ þ b2ðDMGPt� 2Þ þ b3ðDMOPt� 1Þþ b4ðMOPt� 2Þ þ b5ðDNPCt� 1Þ þ b6ðDNPCt� 2Þ þ Controlsþ et
(1)
DMOPt ¼ b0 þ b1ðDMOPt� 1Þ þ b2ðDMOPt� 2Þ þ b3ðDMGPt� 1Þþ b4ðDMGPt� 2Þ þ b5ðDNPCt� 1Þ þ b6ðDNPCt� 2Þ þ Controlsþ et
(2)
DNPCt ¼ b0 þ b1ðDNPCt� 1Þ þ b2ðDNPCt� 2Þ þ b3ðDMOPt� 1Þþ b4ðDMOPt� 2Þ þ b5ðDMGPt� 1Þ þ b6ðDMGPt� 2Þþ Controls þ et (3)
The dependent variables denote issue attention shifts by MGPs, MOPs andNPCs in the current year compared to the previous year.19 Because separatemodels had to be estimated for immigration and European integration, the
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NPC terms refer to either a shift in the emphasis of the issue of immigrationor a shift in the emphasis of the issue of European integration by the owner ofthese issues. In each equation, the parties’ shifts in issue salience are explainedby the lagged shifts in their own agendas, lagged changes in the agendas ofcompetitors and lagged shifts in the control variables. Public attention shiftswere also treated as being endogenous, while changes in societal trends (num-ber of immigrants and net costs of EU membership) and the temporary effectsof 9/11 and EU referenda were added as exogenous predictors.20
Contrary to OLS regression, b-coefficients in VAR models with multiplelags have no straightforward interpretation. Not only may multicollinearity biasthe estimates, but the direction or significance of coefficients may also varybetween lags. Therefore, Granger exogeneity tests were used to test the nullhypothesis that the sum of all lags for a given variable in a single equation isequal to zero (Granger 1969). Because these coefficients can only be calculatedfor endogenous variables, b-coefficients will be reported for the exogenouscontrol variables. Additionally, because multiple imputation was used toaddress missing public opinion data, formulas were used to pool b-coefficients,standard errors, Granger statistics and p values across the different simulationsof the data (Li et al. 1991; Rubin 1987). Given that Granger statistics do notdescribe the direction or duration of effects, the forecast cumulated response ofone agenda in response to a one standard deviation shock in another wasgraphed by using cumulative impulse response functions (CIRFs) (seeLütkepohl 1991).
The relationship between NPCs and MOPs regarding the issue of immigra-tion requires further attention because the tests identified co-integration(Johansen 1995): ‘a kind of magnetic attraction’ in the level of attention thatboth party types devote to the issue in the long run (Green and Jennings 2012:485). Thus, at least one of the party blocs adjusts its issue emphasis to correctdeviations from the long-run equilibrium arising when one bloc posed moreparliamentary questions than the other in the previous year. Closing such gapsis a gradual process that can take several years, and thus we speak of a long-term relationship. Intuitively, the presence of co-integration makes sense asparties are influenced by the prominence of an issue in the ‘party systemagenda’ (Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010). It is thus likely that MOPs notonly change their agenda because of shifts in the agenda of NPCs but also toalign their absolute level of attention with these parties.
Do only MOPs close the gap with NPCs, or does causality also run theother way? This question can be explored with a Vector Error CorrectionModel (VECM) which is specified by adding a term capturing the previousyear’s deviation from long-run equilibrium (ξt–1) to the immigration VARregressions (equations (2) and (3)). Because this framework does not permitthe inclusion of endogenous or non-stationary control variables (Asteriou andHall 2007), only the impact of 9/11 and the issue emphasis of MGPs could becontrolled for, leading to the following equations:21
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DMOPt ¼ b0 þ b1ðDNPCt� 1Þ þ b2ðDMOPt� 1Þ þ aMOPðnt� 1Þþ Controls þ et (4)
DNPCt ¼ b0 þ b1ðDNPCt� 1Þ þ b2ðDMOPt� 1Þ þ aNPCðnt� 1Þþ Controls þ et (5)
Again, the dependent variables denote issue attention shifts by MOPs andNPCs, while the β parameters capture the effects of the short-run changes inthe independent variables. Once more Granger causality tests will be used toexamine short-term effects. The terms αNPC and αMOP, denoting the speed ofadjustment towards long-run equilibrium, are new to the analysis. Higher val-ues indicate that it takes fewer years for that agenda to correct past shocks tothe mutual equilibrium. A statistically significant effect of αMOP in equation(4) thus signifies that MOPs increase their salience of immigration when theabsolute percentage of questions asked by NPCs was above the mutual equilib-rium in the previous year and decrease their salience of immigration when theabsolute percentage of questions asked by NPCs was below that equilibrium.Similarly, a statistically significant αNPC in equation (5) implies that this rela-tionship also runs the other way. These dynamics were ultimately graphed withorthogonalised impulse response functions (OIRFs) (Lütkepohl 1991).
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Figures 2 and 3 depict how political attention and public attention regardingboth issues and societal trends have varied over time. Regarding Europeanintegration (Figure 2), the peaks in 1972, 1992 and 2000 show that referen-dums mainly brought the issue to the forefront, after which attention returnedto its initial level. Although the different party blocs follow a similar pattern,NPCs have made few efforts to mobilise the issue, as their attention level scar-cely exceeds that of MOPs. This result suggests that European integration con-stitutes a conservative test of the hypothesised sequence of politicisation, as itis more likely that MOPs, and indirectly, MGPs will feel pressured to trespasson highly salient issues.
In contrast, Figure 3 shows that immigration has been steadily rising onthe different agendas. The high attention on the issue by NPCs from the mid-1980s onwards suggests that the Progress Party and Danish People’s Partyhave made significant efforts to demand attention on the issue in parliament.While the graph suggests that MOPs and MGPs have responded by increasingtheir attention on the issue, time-series models are needed to untangle thecausality.
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Agenda-setting on European Integration
Table 1 displays the results for the VAR examining inter-party agenda-settingon European integration. In line with the first hypothesis suggesting that MOPsadjust their agendas in response to NPCs, the statistically significant pooledF-statistic of NPCs (F = 6.76, p < 0.01) in the equation for MOPs providesevidence that NPCs ‘Granger-cause’ MOPs (i.e. past shifts in NPCs’ emphasison European integration) helps to predict changes in the agenda of MOPs.Recall, however, that impulse response functions must be calculated to showthe direction of the effect.
The CIRF displayed in Figure 4 (upper-left) demonstrates with how manystandard deviations MOPs increase their attention on European integrationalong the forecast horizon depicted on the x-axis (measured in years) inresponse to a one standard deviation increase in the agenda of NPCs in theprevious year (step = 0). This figure reveals that MOPs increase their salienceregarding European integration by about .12 standard deviations in the subse-quent year (step = 1), confirming the intuition that mainstream parties becomerisk-acceptant when they are in opposition.
05
1015
20
Salie
nce
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010year
NPCs
MOPs
MGPs
Salience political agenda
05
10
Salie
nce
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010year
Salience public agenda
-1-.5
0.5
1
% o
f GD
P
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010year
EU net contribution
FIGURE 2POLITICISATION OF THE EU ISSUE IN DENMARK
Note: The attention of NPCs and MOPs for the EU issue is measured by the percentage of parliamentary ques-tions asked on the issue, while the issue emphasis of MGPs is operationalised as the percentage of sentencesdevoted to the EU in their declaration of government speeches. The salience of the issue on the public agendareflects the percentage of respondents mentioning European integration as an important problem. Finally, the netEU contribution is measured as a percentage of Danish GDP.
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Regarding H2, proposing that MGPs are not responsive to shifts in NPCs’attention, initially Table 1 seems to show that MGPs are Granger-caused byNPCs (F = 4.67, p < 0.05). The CIRF (Figure 4), however, indicates that thisconcerns a negative effect that only dies out after four years, implying thatMGPs de-emphasise the issue. This result may be explained by the logic thatgoverning parties are usually tied to coalition agreements, making it difficult tochange their thematic foci. By downplaying the salience of niche party issues,they not only avoid making such changes but also create more room for theissues on the government agenda.22 Furthermore, the findings support the thirdhypothesis stating that MGPs increase their attention on niche party issues inresponse to MOPs because MOPs Granger-cause MGPs (F =8.25, p < 0.01).Although the effect quickly dies out (Figure 4), it is of considerable size, asMGPs increase their attention on European integration by approximately fourstandard deviations in the subsequent year.
Several other interesting dynamics deserve further attention. Although the pooledF statistics in Table 1 initially suggest that the public Granger-causes MOPs(F = 10.14, p < 0.01) and MGPs (F = 5.61, p < 0.01), the CIRFs show that botheffects are negative (step 3 for MOPs, step 1 for MGPs). Hence, no evidence in
05
1015
20
Salie
nce
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
year
NPCs
MOPs
MGPs
Salience political agenda
05
1015
2025
Salie
nce
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
year
Salience public agenda
34
56
7
X 10
.000
Imm
igra
nts
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010year
Number of immigrants
FIGURE 3POLITICISATION OF IMMIGRATION ISSUE IN DENMARK
Note: The attention of NPCs and MOPs for the immigration issue is measured by the percentage of parliamen-tary questions asked on the issue, while the issue emphasis of MGPs is operationalised as the percentage of sen-tences devoted to immigration in their declaration of government speeches. The salience of the issue on thepublic agenda reflects the percentage of respondents mentioning immigration as an important problem. Finally,the number of newly arriving immigrants is measured in tens of thousands.
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favour of dynamic representation is found for European integration. Alternatively,the public itself responds to increased attention by NPCs (F = 2.42, p < 0.1) andMOPs (F = 3.54, p < 0.1). Nonetheless, the CIRFs show that this only concerns apositive effect in the case of NPCs. Furthermore, Figure 4 shows a negative relation-ship between MGPs and MOPs (F = 7.57, p < 0.01), suggesting that MOPs decreasetheir attention on European integration in response to upward shifts by MGPs. MOPsmight be able to downplay the issues addressed by MGPs and to redirect attention totheir own issues because they have no governing responsibility (Green-Pedersen andMortensen 2010). Finally, Table 1 shows that changes in societal trends, and espe-cially key events, are relevant in explaining EU political attention shifts. Althoughthe interpretation of the b-coefficients is misleading in VAR models with multiplelags, the positive significant b-coefficients at t–2 in the equation for MOPs (b = 1.1,p < 0.01) and NPCs (b = 3.1, p < 0.05) provide some evidence that the oppositionincreases attention on European integration when the net costs of EU membershiprise.23 In turn, there is abundant proof that political actors increase their attention onEuropean integration in referendum years (Hooghe and Marks 2009).
TABLE 1VAR RESULTS POL IT IC I SAT ION OF THE EU I SSUE
Δ SaliencePublic
Δ SalienceMOPs
Δ SalienceNPCs
Δ SalienceMGPs
Pooled F-statistics of Granger causalityΔ Salience Public – 10.14*** 2.25 5.61***
Δ Salience MOPs 3.54* – 1.28 8.25***
Δ Salience NPCs 2.42* 6.76*** – 4.67**
Δ Salience MGPs 1.31 7.57*** 1.13 –
Pooled b-coefficients and standard errorsΔ Maastricht 1992 1.4* 0.78*** 1.86*** 9.95***
Δ Maastricht 1993(0.83) (0.16)* (0.63) (1.86)3.88*** 1.06** 1.57* 4.91**(1.18) (0.22) (0.85) (2.47)
Δ Euro 2000 7.72*** −0.32 −0.38 2.13(1.02) (0.2) (0.77) (2.25)
Δ Net costs EU membership t-1 −3.38** −0.49* 1.34 5.32(1.63) (0.29) (1.1) (3.25)
Δ Net costs EU membership t-2 −1.21 1.13*** 3.06** −0.33(1.69) (0.35) (1.34) (3.97)
Average R-squared 0.88 0.85 0.71 0.9
N 27 27 27 27
Notes: VAR model explaining shifts in attention for the EU issue of the public (left), MOPs (cen-tre-left), NPCs (centre-right) and MGPs (right). Consistent with the model specification, two lagsof the endogenous variables were included. The pooled b-coefficients reflect the average over thefive simulations of the data, the standard errors were combined by means of the framework pro-posed by Rubin (1987) and the Granger statistics were pooled on the basis of a formula of Liet al. (1991). *p < 0.10; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
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-.10.1.2.3
02
46
8
cirf,
NPC
s, M
OPs
Year
s
-4-202
02
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cirf,
NPC
s, M
GPs
Year
s
-50510
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cirf,
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Ps, M
GPs
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-.1-.050
.05
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cirf,
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lic, M
OPs
Year
s
-2-101
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cirf,
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lic, M
GPs
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cirf,
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s, P
ublic
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-4-202
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MO
Ps, P
ublic
Year
s
-.15-.1-.050
02
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cirf,
MG
Ps, M
OPs
Year
s
FIG
URE
4CIR
FS
EU
ISSUE
Note:
Eachgraphdisplays
thecumulated
response
ofthedependentvariable
over
aperiod
ofeightyearsin
response
toaonestandard
deviationincrease
intheindependentvariable.The
title
ofthegraphfirstmentio
nstheagenda
that
provides
theim
pulseandthen
theonereceivingtheshock.
The
bounds
reflecta95
percent
confi
denceinterval.The
CIRFsareonly
pre-
sented
fortheagenda-settin
grelatio
nships
that
aresignificant
accordingto
thepooled
Fstatisticsin
theVAR
analysis.Itshould
benotedthat
although
thesegraphs
aregeneratedon
the
basisof
only
oneof
themultip
le-imputeddatasets,theCIRFsover
theothersimulated
datasets
provided
very
similarresults
andledto
thesamesubstantialconclusions.
AllCIRFsnot
displayedin
thispaperareavailablefrom
theauthor
upon
request.
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Agenda-setting on Immigration
The results for immigration are displayed in Table 2, while Figure 5 depictsthe CIRFs. Table 2 appears to disconfirm the first hypothesis as NPCs are notfound to Granger-cause MOPs (F = 1.65, p > 0.10). However, a VAR onlyfocuses on short-run dynamics, while there is a long-run relationship betweenboth agendas. Therefore, I begin by discussing the results for the other hypoth-eses and evaluate H1 at the end of this section.
Consistent with H2, the insignificant effect of NPCs in the equation for MGPs(F = 0.5, p > 0.10) demonstrates that NPCs do not predict MGPs’ shifts in issuesalience. Consequently, it is not necessary to further map this relationship. Table 2also confirms H3 as MOPs Granger-cause MGPs (F = 2.56, p < 0.10). As shownin Figure 5, MGPs increase their attention on the issue of immigration by 0.5 stan-dard deviations in the subsequent year, after which the effect vanishes.
Before proceeding with the discussion of the first hypothesis, some otherfindings need to be further elaborated. Similar to European integration, theinsignificant effects of the public in each equation demonstrate that politicalactors are not responsive to shifts in public attention. This result is striking, asadditional analyses demonstrated that both issues are more salient in Denmarkthan anywhere else in Western Europe, suggesting that Denmark is a crucialcase (Gerring 2007: 231–33).24
TABLE 2VAR RESULTS POL IT IC I SAT ION OF THE IMMIGRAT ION I SSUE
Δ SaliencePublic
Δ SalienceMOPs
Δ SalienceNPCs
Δ SalienceMGPs
Pooled F-statistics of Granger causalityΔ Salience Public – 0.00 1.99 2.05
Δ Salience MOPs 0.00 – 9.27*** 2.56*
Δ Salience NPCs 1.06 1.65 – 0.5
Δ Salience MGPs 2.58 2.56* 5.06** –
Pooled b-coefficients and standard errorsΔ 9/11 t 18.57* 7.66** 11.76*** 0.93
(9.65) (3.02) (3.69) (3.3)Δ Number of immigrants t–1 2.49 1.09 1.9 −0.94
(5.97) (1.52) (2.87) (1.59)Δ Number of immigrants t–2 −1.02 0.98 2.54 2.22
(7.86) (1.86) (3.06) (2.55)Average R-squared 0.74 0.51 0.67 0.78N 27 27 27 27
Notes: VAR model explaining shifts in attention for the immigration issue of the public (left),MOPs (centre-left), NPCs (centre-right) and MGPs (right). Consistent with the model specification,two lags of the endogenous variables were included. The pooled b-coefficients reflect the averageover the five simulations of the data, the standard errors were combined by means of the frame-work proposed by Rubin (1987) and the Granger statistics were pooled on the basis of a formulaof Li et al. (1991). *p < 0.10; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
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From Figure 5 it also becomes apparent that NPCs de-emphasise theissue of immigration in response to MGPs (F = 5.06, p < 0.05) and MOPs(F = 9.27, p < 0.01). An explanation for this result could be that parties benefitfrom further attention on an issue when they have issue ownership (cf. Petrocik1996), while other parties can still run away with non-owned issues (Walgraveet al. 2009). Specifically, because the Danish Progress and People’s partiesclearly own the issue of immigration (Goul Andersen 2008), there is no needfor them to emphasise the issue even more when mainstream parties increasetheir attention. Analogous to the findings regarding European integration,Figure 5 provides additional evidence that MOPs de-emphasise niche partyissues in response to MGPs (F = 2.56, p < 0.10), which is most likely due tothe structural advantage enjoyed by the opposition in parliamentaryagenda-setting (Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2010).
-.5
0
.5
1
0 2 4 6 8
cirf, MOPs, MGPs
Years
-2
-1
0
1
0 2 4 6 8
cirf, MOPs, NPs
Years
-2
-1
0
1
0 2 4 6 8
cirf, MGPs, NPs
Years
-3
-2
-1
0
1
0 2 4 6 8
cirf, MGPs, MOPs
Years
FIGURE 5CIRFS IMMIGRATION ISSUE
Note: Each graph displays the cumulated response of the dependent variable over a period of eight years in resp-onse to a one standard deviation increase in the independent variable. The title of the graph first mentions theagenda that provides the impulse and then the one receiving the shock. The bounds reflect a 95 per centconfidence interval. The CIRFs are only presented for the agenda-setting relationships that are significantaccording to the pooled F statistics in the VAR analysis. It should be noted that although these graphs aregenerated on the basis of only one of the multiple-imputed datasets, the CIRFs over the other simulated datasetsprovided very similar results and led to the same substantial conclusions. All CIRFs not displayed in this paperare available from the author upon request.
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Finally, there is mixed evidence in favour of the impact of ‘grievances’ onpolitical attention. Whereas the yearly number of newly arriving immigrantsdoes not have an effect on political attention, 9/11 clearly served as a windowof opportunity for the opposition to mobilise the issue of immigration. NPCs(b = 11.76, p < 0.01) and MOPs (b = 7.66, p < 0.05) increased their attentionby 12 and 8 per cent, respectively, suggesting that this event had a consider-able impact on the attention of these parties on immigration.
Evaluating the Long-run Relationship between NPCs and MOPs
Table 3 presents the results for the VECM model, which distinguishes betweenshort- and long-run agenda-setting effects between NPCs and MOPs (H1),whereas the OIRFs in Figure 6 display the overall effects that both types ofparties exert on each other.
Similar to the results in Table 2, the VECM provides no evidence for ashort-term agenda-setting effect of NPCs on MOPs (F = 2.69, p > 0.10). Yet,the significant speed of adjustment indicator in the equation for MOPs(α = 0.26, p < 0.01) indicates that NPCs do have a long-run impact on MOPs.To be more precise, MOPs are able to correct 26 per cent of the total deviationfrom the mutual equilibrium within a period of a year.25 More important, theinsignificant speed of adjustment parameter (α = –0.05) in the equation forNPCs demonstrates that causality does not run in the other direction, indicatingthat the level of attention by NPCs serves as a thermostat for MOPs: when theabsolute percentage of parliamentary questions asked by NPCs lies above the
TABLE 3VECM RESULTS LONG-TERM RELAT IONSH I P BETWEEN NPCS AND MOPS
Δ Salience NPCs Δ Salience MOPs
b/se b/seECM (t–1) −0.05 0.26***
(0.13) (0.07)Δ Salience NPCs (t–1) 0.18 −0.23
(0.24) (0.14)Δ Salience MOPs (t–1) −0.64* 0.16
(0.37) (0.21)Salience MGPs (t) −0.16 0.05
(0.32) (0.18)NYC (t) 4.28 2.86
(4.48) (2.55)Constant 0.55 −0.05
(0.96) (0.55)F-tests of Granger causality 2.93* 2.69R-squared 0.15 0.46N 28 28
Notes: VECM model explaining changes in the attention of NPCs (left) and MOPs (right) for theimmigration issue. Each time the dependent variable is explained by the lagged changes in its ownagenda, the lagged changes in the agenda of its competitor and the long-run equilibrium, the ECM,that exist between both agendas. The b-coefficients reflect percentages. *p < 0.10; ** p< 0.05;***p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
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mutual equilibrium, MOPs will respond by increasing their attention. Likewise,MOPs will de-emphasise the issue when NPCs demand less attention.
Although the Granger statistic in the equation for NPCs (F = 2.93,p < 0.10) initially suggests a short-run reverse effect, the OIRFs (Figure 6)yield further evidence for the one-sidedness of the relationship. MOPs immedi-ately increase their attention on immigration by 1.3 standard deviations (leftgraph) in response to a one standard deviation shock. Although this effectdecreases slightly in the second year, it reverts back to its initial magnitudeand persists over time (left graph). In turn, NPCs respond to a shock fromMOPs in a negative manner, after which the effect remains close to zero (rightgraph). Thus, NPCs have a positive permanent effect on MOPs, while MOPshave a negative transitory effect on NPCs.26 Overall the findings fully supportthe sequence of agenda-setting set forth in H1 to H3.
Finally, the smaller agenda-setting effect of NPCs on European integration(0.12 sd) compared to immigration (1.3 sd) also confirms H4, suggesting thatMOPs are more likely to trespass on issues with lower electoral and coalitionalrisk. Put differently, the electoral incentives of mainstream parties reinforce the
.5
1
1.5
0 5 10
vec1, NPCs, MOPs
Years
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
0 5 10
vec1, MOPs, NPCs
Years
FIGURE 6OIRFS IMMIGRATION ISSUE
Note: Each graph depicts the response of the dependent variable over a period of 10 years in response to anorthogonal one standard deviation increase in the independent variable. The graph on the left displays theagenda-setting effect of niche parties on MOPs, while the graph on the right presents the effect of MOPs onNPCs. Stata supplies no confidence bands because of the complexities that arise due to the presence of the errorcorrection mechanism.
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effect of opposition, which simultaneously explains why there are differences inthe degree of politicisation between immigration and European integration inDenmark. That said, the findings also suggest that NPCs have a long-runagenda-setting effect on immigration and a short-run effect on European inte-gration. Why is that so? A possible explanation might be that European integra-tion has traditionally been the project of mainstream parties (Hooghe and Marks2009), whereas they were initially slow to coalesce around immigration, largelyleaving policy-making to administrative contexts during the guest worker era(Freeman 1995). Because of their lack of experience with the issue, mainstreamparties may have thus taken some time to accommodate the issue in their partyplatforms when the electoral success of NPCs forced them to do so.
Conclusions and Discussion
This study proposed a dynamic model for agenda-setting on two issues that aretraditionally owned by niche parties: immigration and European integration.The results provide evidence that risk-acceptant MOPs increase their attentionon both issues in response to greater emphasis by NPCs, while risk-averseMGPs ignore these shifts and only respond when the issues are brought for-ward by MOPs.
These findings provide several important contributions. While the literaturehas generally focused on how mainstream parties respond to niche party issues(cf. Green-Pedersen 2012; Meguid 2005), this study explores which parties willrespond to their issues. Against the backdrop of Meguid’s (2008) theory ofstrategic choice, the most essential work in this area, this study contends thatmainstream parties in opposition are more likely to issue trespass than those ingovernment. Importantly, Meguid’s (2008) work rests on the assumption thatmainstream parties are utility maximisers and will issue trespass when electoralbenefits supersede potential costs like party factionalism and policy consis-tency. Yet, the assumption of utility maximisation would imply that a main-stream party’s government/opposition fails to matter. This study suggests quitethe contrary, namely that this is a crucial variable to predict which mainstreamparties will respond. Hence, future research in this area should distinguishbetween MOPs and MGPs.
Second, since NPC attention is a sufficient condition for MOPs and, indi-rectly, MGPs to respond, niche parties have considerable influence on themobilisation of their issues – particularly given that EU integration is a leastlikely issue in which mainstream parties would engage in issue trespassing.While some studies have argued that mainstream parties’ strategic behaviourmainly shapes politicisation (Green-Pedersen 2012; Green-Pedersen andKrogstrup 2008; Green-Pedersen and Odmalm 2008; Meguid 2005), this find-ing lends credence to a more balanced view regarding the hypothesised impactof mainstream vis-à-vis niche parties. Niche parties should not be considered‘hapless victims [of the external political supply side]’ but rather ‘active shap-ers of their own fates’ (Mudde 2007: 256). Yet, the smaller agenda-setting
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effect of NPCs on European integration suggests that the incentives of main-stream parties are also relevant in explaining attention on niche party issues inparliamentary arenas. Hence, future studies could further elaborate on the inter-action between the strategies chosen by niche and mainstream parties.
Third, the evidence that public attention shifts exert no influence on politi-cal attention informs the literature on dynamic representation (cf. Hobolt andKlemmemsen 2005; Page and Shapiro 1983; Wlezien 1996). The sequence ofpoliticisation found in this study suggests that voters only have an impact onthe politicisation of new issues such as immigration and European integrationby voting on the parties mobilising them.27
Despite these important results, this study also has limitations. First, itshould be acknowledged that some alternative explanations for mainstream par-ties’ reactions to niche party issues could not be taken into consideration, suchas the electoral threat posed by different niche parties and mainstream parties’organisational constraints (Meguid 2008). This is because focusing on individ-ual niche party traits like vote share would lead to gaps in the time-series.Green parties, for instance, only gained parliamentary representation in Den-mark after 1994. This study solves this problem by aggregating issue ownersin a niche party bloc. Regarding the characteristics of mainstream parties,unfortunately no time-variant measure of elite factionalism or leadership auton-omy exists for Danish parties from the 1970s and onwards. The results fromthis study would lead one to expect that a mainstream party’s government/opposition status also plays an important part in its response to a specific nicheparty. Yet, more research, preferably employing cross-national data so that theimpact of electoral systems characteristics on issue trespassing can also beexplored (Meguid 2008), is needed to test the generalisability of my results tothe level of individual niche party issue owners. Second, this study relies onevidence from a single country. Given the evolutionary origin of prospect-theoretical preferences (for a discussion see Vis 2011), however, there is no apriori reason to believe that government/opposition status would not affect thebehaviour of mainstream parties beyond the case of Denmark. Finally, thisstudy has focused on the role of mainstream parties, but it is equally importantto study how niche parties can increase the likelihood that their issues will beaddressed. Framing opens a particularly interesting avenue for further research.
Acknowledgements
Previous drafts of this article were presented at the ECPR General Conference inReykjavik (25–27 August 2011) and at the annual meeting of the MPSA in Chicago(12–15 April 2012). Many people have offered valuable comments on this work includ-ing Catherine de Vries, Wouter van der Brug, Sarah de Lange, Christoffer Green-Peder-sen, Ruud Koopmans, Tom van der Meer, Matthijs Rooduijn, David Rossbach,Christine Arnold and the anonymous reviewers. The author also expresses his gratitudeto Christoffer Green-Pedersen for generously sharing his dataset on parliamentary activi-ties and Jens Wagner from the Danish Data Archive (DDA) for providing the publicopinion surveys.
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Notes
1. This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) underGrant No. [NWO 432–08-130].
2. Unlike Adams et al. (2006), I selected radical left parties on the basis of their anti-EU positionand not because of their non-centrist left–right position. This would be problematic sinceWagner (2012) rightly points out that according to the definition of Adams et al., a party thatexclusively competes on economic matters (e.g., an old-fashioned Communist party) wouldstill be a niche party while niche parties are defined as rejecting the class-based orientation ofpolitics.
3. Previous research has argued that the mainstream right in particular had an incentive to pursueaccommodative strategies on immigration (cf. van Kersbergen and Krouwel 2008). Issue tres-passing refers to increasing one’s attention, however, and not necessarily that a party shouldadopt a more restrictive position. The online appendix shows that MOPs also trespassed on thisissue when the opposition was led by Social Democrats.
4. Mainstream parties’ poll performance could also serve as an impetus for change. Yet, yearlypolling data are unavailable and, more important, electoral strength does not necessarily trans-late into bargaining power, especially in Denmark, because of the ‘uncommonly high degree ofbargaining complexity [resulting in] the formation of numerically very weak governments’(Müller and Strøm 1999: 298–99).
5. Evidently, it is an empirical question whether having governed once suffices to make a nicheparty mainstream and therefore more research is needed on this topic. Within the context ofthis study, I firmly believe, however, that it is less problematic to assume that parties becomemainstream after having governed once than treating niche/mainstream status as a fixed crite-rion. Moreover, it should once more be stressed that all niche parties have remained in opposi-tion throughout the sample period, which implies that this assumption had no empiricalconsequences.
6. Media data from the 1970s onwards were unavailable, making the impact of mass media oninter-party agenda-setting an area for further research.
7. Another reason for not including the environmental issue was that Green parties (Red–GreenAlliance) owning the issue only gained representation after 1994.
8. The Danish People’s Party’s support of the Rasmussen I minority government does not threatenthe validity of the conclusions. Such alliances should increase issue trespassing by MGPs,while H2 proposes the opposite effect.
9. The data in the Danish Policy Agenda Project have been collected by Christoffer Green-Peder-sen and Peter Bjerre Mortensen with support from the Danish Social Science Research Counciland the Research Foundation at Aarhus University. For further details see http://www.agendasetting.dk.
10. A sentence/question was classified as dealing with immigration if it mentioned ‘ethnic minori-ties and racial group discrimination’ (code 201) or ‘immigration and refugee issues’ (code230). As for the EU, only sentences/questions directly dealing with the topic (code 1910) wereselected and not those in which it was a subtopic in another policy field.
11. Since the issue emphasis of the opposition was measured in the same fashion, operationalisinggovernment salience by using declaration of government speeches poses no threat to the valid-ity of the conclusions: governing parties refrain from changing the content of their speeches inresponse to questions posed by NPCs (H2), while responding to those asked by MOPs (H3).
12. Party families were derived from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) (Hooghe et al. 2010;Steenbergen and Marks 2007).
13. Even though Meguid (2005, 2008) classifies environmentalist parties on the basis of their pri-mary issue positions, radical right parties are operationalised on the basis of party family (pop-ulist or neo-fascist parties). My selection of radical right parties differs from hers in that theDanish People’s Party (DPP) is also included. This difference is most likely due to the fact thatMeguid bases her case selection on less recent sources than the CHES (see note 12), as it
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seems incontestable that the DPP should be classified as a radical right party (cf. GoulAndersen 2008; Green-Pedersen 2012; Rydgren 2004).
14. The Social Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, Social Liberals , Centre Democrats andChristian People’s Party governed 9, 8, 6, 4, 5 and 4 times, respectively, throughout the sampleperiod.
15. These data were acquired from Jens Wagner of the Danish Data Archive (DDA).16. These data were gathered from the website of the Danish National Bureau of Statistics.17. These data are based on the EU Budget Financial Report 2008 and GDP data from the Euro-
stat website.18. The Lagrange Multiplier test for autocorrelation was used (Johansen 1995).19. An unavoidable consequence of the unavailability of government speeches, parliamentary ques-
tions and public opinion data for the same time intervals is that the substantive interpretationof a one-year lag differs across the hypothesised relationships. Parliamentary questions areaggregated by year, while government speeches are only held in October. Consequently, a one-year lagged effect of MGPs on MOPs and NPCs may set in after three months, while thereversed effects need at least nine months. Similarly, the interpretation of a one-year laggedeffect of public opinion is dependent on the fieldwork date. Despite these limitations, the anal-yses satisfy the more fundamental criterion that shifts in the independent variable need to pre-cede those in the dependent variable.
20. This approach was used because of the lack of theoretical expectations regarding the effect ofpolitical attention on these trends.
21. A VECM includes one less lag of the independent variables than the original VAR.22. Some caution is required when drawing inferences at higher time horizons (steps 2 and 3 in
this case) for small sample sizes. The asymptotic approximations that are used to calculateimpulse response functions provide valid results at low time horizons, while they can becomeinaccurate at higher steps (Killian 1998). Hence, the confirmation of all the hypothesisedagenda-setting effects at step 1 increases the confidence in the findings.
23. This result implies that MOPs and NPCs increase their salience by 1.1 and 3.1 per cent,respectively, two years after a 1 per cent increase in net costs.
24. Analyses available upon request.25. Additional analyses requested by one of the anonymous reviewers provided no systematic evi-
dence that MOPs become more risk-acceptant owing to consecutive office exclusion, justifyingmy approach of not separating MOPs into multiple categories. Yet, the effect of continued poorperformance on a party’s reference point and, subsequently, on its risk proclivity offers aninteresting path for further research.
26. Although the VECM could not include the public opinion series because of non-stationarity,the VAR models revealed that political actors are not responsive to public opinion, making itunlikely that the effect of NPCs was overestimated.
27. Nonetheless, some caution is required regarded this result because only yearly data were avail-able, while public opinion effects might set in earlier.
Notes on Contributors
Marc van de Wardt is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Depart-ment of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research inter-ests include issue competition, party competition, agenda-setting, democraticresponsiveness, European politics, time-series analysis and automated contentanalysis. [[email protected]]
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APPEND IX 1 . DATA AND CASE SELECT ION
Study Immigration EUStudy number in Danish DataArchive
Danish ElectionStudies 1971–81trend file
1971, 1973,1975,1977, 1979,1981
1971, 1973,1975,1977, 1979,1981
DDA658
Danish ElectionStudiesEuropeanParliament ElectionStudy
1984, 1987,1988,1990, 1994,1998,20011989
1984, 1987,1988,1990, 1994,1998,20011989
DDA0772, DDA1340, DDA1432,DDA1564, DDA2210, DDA4189,DDA2516DDA1495
European ElectionStudies
1999 – –
Danish GallupOmnibus Data
1986, 1991 1986, 1991 DDA1405, DDA1732
Danish Gallup pre-Maastrichtreferenduminterviews
1992 1992 DDA1835
Danish Gallup postMaastrichtreferenduminterviews
1993 1993 DDA1839
Public opinionsurveys 1999–2003Lise Togeby*
2000, 2002,2003
1999, 2000,2002,2003
-
Case selection political partiesMainstream parties Social Democratic Party, Social Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Centre
Democrats, Liberal Party, Christian’s People’s PartyIssue owners
immigrationProgress Party (Radical right), Danish People’s Party (Radical right)
Issue owners EU Progress Party (Radical right), Danish People’s Party (Radical right),Socialists People’s Party (Radical left), Communist Party (Radical left),Unity List (Radical left), Left Socialists (Radical left)
Note: *The public opinion surveys 1999–2003 were acquired from Christoffer Green-Pedersen. Formore information see Togeby (2004).
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