Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-27T19:51:48.150Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analyzing Manifestos in their Electoral Context A New Approach Applied to Austria, 2002–2008*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2015

Martin Dolezal ,
Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik ,
Wolfgang C. Müller  and
Anna Katharina Winkler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We present a new method to analyze party manifestos to benefit the placement of political parties per se and to advance the study of elections. Our method improves on existing manual coding approaches by (1) generating semantically complete units based on syntax, (2) standardizing units into a subject–predicate–object structure, and (3) employing a fine-grained and flexible hierarchical coding scheme. We evaluate our approach by comparing estimates for the 2002, 2006, and 2008 Austrian national elections with those yielded by previous studies that employ the entire range of available measurement strategies. We also demonstrate how we link our new manifesto data with other kind of data produced in theAustrian National Election Study, especially mass and elite (party candidate) surveys.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 4 , Supplement 3 , September 2016 , pp. 641 - 650
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Martin Dolezal, Assistant Professor ([email protected]); Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, Assistant Professor ([email protected]); Wolfgang C. Müller, Professor ([email protected]) and Anna K. Winkler, Pre-doctoral Researcher, Department of Government, University of Vienna, Vienna ([email protected]). Research for this note was conducted under the auspices of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (S10903-G11). The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful comments by two reviewers and the corresponding editor, Kenneth Benoit. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.38

References

Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES). 2009. ‘AUTNES Post-Post Election Survey 2009’. Available at www.autnes.at, accessed August 2011.Google Scholar
Benoit, Kenneth, Laver, Michael, and Mikhaylov, Slava. 2009. ‘Treating Words as Data with Error: Uncertainty in Text Statements of Policy Positions’. American Journal of Political Science 53(2):495–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Budge, Ian. 2000. ‘Expert Judgements of Party Policy Positions: Uses and Limitations in Political Research’. European Journal of Political Research 37(1):103–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton & Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
Corbetta, Piergiorgio, Cavazza, Nicoletta, and Roccato, Michele. 2009. ‘Between Ideology and Social Representations: Four Theses Plus (a New) One on the Relevance and the Meaning of the Political Left and Right’. European Journal of Political Research 48(5):622–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Däubler, Thomas, Benoit, Kenneth, Mikhaylov, Slava, and Laver, Michael. 2012. ‘Natural Sentences as Valid Units for Coded Political Texts’. British Journal of Political Science 42(4):937–951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Swaan, Abram. 1973. Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formations. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Dolezal, Martin, Eder, Nikolaus, Kritzinger, Sylvia, and Zeglovits, Eva. 2013. ‘The Structure of Issue Attitudes Revisited: A Dimensional Analysis of Austrian Voters and Party Elites’. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties 23(4):423–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuchs, Dieter, and Klingemann, Hans-Dieter. 1990. ‘The Left-Right Schema’. In M. Kent Jennings, Jan W. van Deth, Samuel H. Barnes, Felix J. Heunks, Ronald Inglehart, Max Kaase, Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Jacques J. A. Thomassen (eds), Continuities in Political Action. A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies. 203–234. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, Liesbet, Bakker, Ryan, Brigevich, Anna, de Vries, Catherine, Edwards, Erica, Marks, Gary, Rovny, Jan, Steenbergen, Marco, and Vachudova, Milada. 2010. ‘Reliability and Validity of the 2002 and 2006 Chapel Hill Expert Surveys on Party Positioning’. European Journal of Political Research 49(5):687–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Heemin, and Fording, Richard C.. 1998. ‘Voter Ideology in Western Democracies, 1946–1989’. European Journal of Political Research 33(1):73–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleinnijenhuis, Jan, and Pennings, Paul. 2001. ‘Measurement of Party Positions on the Basis of Party Programmes, Media Coverage and Voter Perceptions’. In Michael Laver (ed.), Estimating the Policy Positions of Political Actors. 162–182. London Routledge.Google Scholar
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Volkens, Andrea, Bara, Judith, Budge, Ian, and McDonald, Michael. 2006. Mapping Policy Preferences II. Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments in Eastern Europe, European Union, and OECD 1990–2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Grande, Edgar, Lachat, Romain, Dolezal, Martin, Bornschier, Simon, and Frey, Timotheos. 2008. West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael, and Garry, John. 2000. ‘Estimating Policy Positions from Political Texts’. American Journal of Political Science 44(3):619–634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linhart, Eric, and Shikano, Susumu. 2009. ‘Ideological Signals of German Parties in a Multi-Dimensional Space: An Estimation of Party Preferences Using the CMP Data’. German Politics 18(3):301–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mair, Peter. 2001. ‘Searching for the Positions of Political Actors. A Review of the Approaches and a Critical Evaluation of Expert Surveys’. In Michael Laver (ed.), Estimating the Policy Positions of Political Actors. 10–30. London Routledge.Google Scholar
Müller, Wolfgang C., Jenny, Marcelo, Steininger, Barbara, Dolezal, Martin, Philipp, Wilfried, and Preisl-Westphal, Sabine. 2001. Die österreichischen Abgeordneten. Individuelle Präferenzen und politisches Verhalten. Vienna: Facultas.Google Scholar
Müller, Wolfgang C., Dolezal, Martin, Ennser-Jedenastik, Laurenz, and Winkler, Anna Katharina. 2012. ‘AUTNES Manifesto Coding Dataset 2008, Public Use Version 1.0.’, July 2012 (www.autnes.at).Google Scholar
Müller, Wolfgang C., Eder, Nikolaus, and Jenny, Marcelo. 2012. ‘AUTNES Candidate Survey 2008, Public Use Version 1.1.’, October 2012 (www.autnes.at).Google Scholar
Steenbergen, Marco, and Marks, Gary. 2007. ‘Evaluating Expert Judgments’. European Journal of Political Research 46(3):347–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Dolezal et al. Dataset

Dataset

http://dx/doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27864
Link
Supplementary material: File

Dolezal supplementary material S1

Appendix

Download Dolezal supplementary material S1(File)
File 3.2 MB
Supplementary material: PDF

Dolezal supplementary material S2

Appendix

Download Dolezal supplementary material S2(PDF)
PDF 1.1 MB