Party strategies during economic instability : Examining how fluctuations in economic expectations among voters affect the policy positioning of parties

Abstract: This thesis examines the ways that fluctuations in voter expectations for the state of the economy affect party strategies, throughout 28 countries across the EU and OECD between 1995 and 2021. I thus make a theoretical contribution to the existing research by testing the theoretical models that claim that parties primarily respond to voter preferences and perceptions when conducting their policy strategies. Utilizing data from the Comparative Manifestos Project, the Eurobarometer, QOG and ParlGov, the study examines policy positions on economic issues, as presented in party manifestos ahead of elections. Using fixed-effects regressions with interaction variables, the effects of voter expectations on policy stances are examined, both in parliaments more generally as well as for each party family respectively. Specifically, Social-democratic, conservative, populist, Christian-democratic, and liberal parties are considered. Results show that when citizen expectations for the state of the economy worsen, parties show tendencies of shifting their policy stances to the left across the left-right scale. This is true across parliaments more generally, and results indicate that it may also be true when looking at each party family respectively. Most notably, results show that economic expectations impact the policy positions of parties even when controlling for the actual state of the economy, implying that parties are responsive to voter expectations independently of other macroeconomic considerations.