Issue salience and party competition in Southern Europe before and after the Euro crisis: the primacy of the economy holding back cultural issues

Abstract

ABSTRACT Did the crisis period influence party issue salience on the two main dimensions of conflict – economic and cultural – in Europe? How did this happen in terms of potential differences between Southern European countries, the most exposed to economic depression and austerity, and the rest of Europe? And what can we learn about all this when we look at the parties themselves and consider party-level determinants of issue salience? In answering these questions, this study investigates continuity and change in party issue salience over time, comparing Southern Europe with the rest of Europe between 2000 and 2018. Using manifesto data, we test hypotheses on the relevance of the economic crisis for issue salience in party competition and the intermediary role of party characteristics in one of the most turbulent areas of recent times. We show that in Southern Europe, during the Great Recession, the socio-economic cleavage contained the ascendance of a socio-cultural dimension and that party-level characteristics are important in conditioning responses to the crisis in terms of issue salience. To pursue the argument, we combine insights from saliency theory and accounts of party strategic adaptation.