How post-industrial issue positions and salience shape the electoral trends of Western European parties

Established parties in Europe are facing unprecedented challenges: new social
risks associated with post-industrialism are on the rise, electorates are
becoming increasingly fractionalised, and national-populist challenger parties
have gained traction by raising new issues while significant parts of the
electorate remain demobilised. This raises the question: How can different
parties change their policy positions to mobilise, retain, and represent voters?
I will aim to answer this question through a comprehensive analysis of the
relationship between the issue strategies parties decide to pursue in terms of
policy position and issue emphasis, and their electoral success among different
parts of the electorate facing distinct challenges in a post-industrial age. In
three studies, I will argue that changes in issue position and salience play
distinct roles in structuring the electoral mobilisation and retainment of voters
for different party families across Western Europe. For this purpose, I will draw
on data from the European Social Survey and the Comparative Manifesto
Project to conduct multivariate regression analyses as well as survey
experiments exploring the mechanisms behind vote choice.
In the first study, I plan to provide a comprehensive analysis of the effect of
social democratic strategies on the vote choice of workers in the manufacturing
and service industries. In the second article, I plan to examine the impact of
postmaterialist strategies by Christian-democratic parties on their electoral
success. In the third article, I would like to assess to what extent
accommodative strategies of green parties, with increasing emphases on non environmental issues, contribute to their electoral success.
Understanding how the positions and salience parties ascribe to post-industrial
and postmaterialist issue dimensions structure voting decisions amongst
different demographics of the electorate can guide our understanding of why
different voters cast their vote for different parties or decide to abstain.