Strategic incentives of political parties : policy-making, ideological positioning, & election campaigning

Abstract

This three-paper thesis explores three instruments of party strategy: the party’s policy implementations, the party’s ideological positioning, and the targeting of their political campaigns. In each case we explore how these instruments affect the party’s fortunes and whether those fortunes would have been different if the party had adopted a different strategy. Drawing on new data in each case, the thesis seeks to answer a number of important puzzles of political science.