Strategic Campaign Communication: Evidence from 30,000 Candidate Manifestos

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Le Pennec, Caroline
• 署名单位: Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/uead082
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 785-810
• 关键词: electoral competition; ELECTIONS; primaries; MODEL; selection; runoffs; step; text

摘要

Politicians seeking to persuade voters may not always be able to say what they would like to say. Adopting policy positions opposite to that of their party or contradicting their previous policy announcements may be costly. I use computational text analysis on 30,000 candidate manifestos from two-round French elections to show that politicians take these costs into account, by toeing the party line and sticking to their platform, while also strategically adjusting their campaign communication and advertising neutral non-policy issues when they need to reach a broader electorate. I provide suggestive evidence that this moderation of electoral discourse predicts better performance in office and may therefore provide valuable information to voters.