First things first or the more the merrier? Topic order as an indicator of issue emphasis in election manifestos

Adendorf, Anna

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-679194
Document Type:	Doctoral dissertation
Year of publication:	2024
Place of publication:	Mannheim
University:	Universität Mannheim
Evaluator:	Gschwend, Thomas
Date of oral examination:	24 September 2024
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Social Sciences > Politische Wissenschaft, Quantitative Sozialwissenschaftliche Methoden (Gschwend 2007-)
Subject:	320 Political science
Keywords (English):	election manifestos , text as data , issue emphasis
Abstract:	In this dissertation, I introduce topic order as a second dimension of the concept of issue emphasis. Understanding issue emphasis as a two-dimensional concept consisting of topic order and issue attention takes into account that parties can highlight topics in their manifestos in different ways, possibly addressing different audiences. Analysing German election manifestos between 2002 and 2017, I show that parties prioritise the key issues of their party base when emphasising topics in their manifestos. Using a novel survey experiment, I show that people who read a manifesto perceive topics that are placed early in a manifesto to be of higher importance to the respective party than topics that are placed later. Lastly, analysing newspaper articles covering German election manifestos between 2002 and 2017, I show that topics that are placed in the beginning chapters of a manifesto are more present in the media coverage than topics that are placed later.