Manifestos and public opinion: testing the relevance of spatial models to explain salience choices

According to Downs’ spatial model of electoral competition, in two-party systems, political parties move closer to the median voter’s preferences, while in multiparty democracies, party platforms target their own electorate. This model has been used to predict parties’ policy positions, but never to explain their salience choices. Based on data from political manifestos and public opinion in 23 European countries from 2004 to 2012, we show that the Downsian model can be applied to salience strategies when issue attention is different among left-wing and right-wing voters. In line with the spatial theory, parties choose to place emphasis on different issues in their manifestos depending on the importance attached to each of these issues by either the median voter or their partisan voters, depending on their size and the characteristics of the party system.