Henrik Bech Seeberg

The opposition's policy influence through issue politicisation

In a quantitative study using unique quarterly data across two decades, this article addresses the oppositions opportunities to influence policy; a topic that has been neglected in existing party-policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable policy development on crime during the Danish leftwing government in the 1990s. Contrary to its policy position when it took office in 1993, the leftwing government repeatedly adopted severe restrictions to penal policy. The policy position of the rightwing opposition and its vehement and persistent criticism of the government provide an explanation, the article argues. Taking media coverage, public opinion, violence statistics, and the governments performance into account, the analysis shows that opposition criticism spurred the penal policy restrictions. Hence, by incorporating a policy agenda perspective, this article encourages a broadening of the perspective on parties’ policy influence. In particularly the oppositions opportunities to politicise issues and hereby influence policy.

The power of talk and the welfare state: evidence from 23 countries on an asymmetric opposition-government response mechanism

Who Governs matters greatly to welfare state policy. An almost complete neglect of the parliamentary opposition in the comparative political economy suggests that only office-holding matters, but we disagree. We argue that opposition parties of the Left constrain Right governments’ welfare state policies, while opposition parties of the Right have no similar effect on Left governments. This is the asymmetric opposition-government response mechanism. Through the compilation of an extensive dataset, we test the mechanism across 23 countries from 1980-2007, and find strong evidence for the existence of the mechanism. This demonstrates that parties matter to policy formation not only as yielders of office power, but as agenda-setters too.

How Stable Is Political Parties’ Issue Ownership? A Cross-Time, Cross-National Analysis:

Research on issue ownership is accelerating and so is its use in studies of voting and party behaviour. Yet we do not know how stable issue ownership is. Does it describe a solid, persistent association between a party and an issue in the eyes of the electorate, or does it describe a more fluid and fragile issue reputation of a party among the electorate? Theoretical and empirical work suggests both stability and variability in issue ownership. To get closer to an answer, this article presents and analyses unprecedented comprehensive data on issue ownership. The analysis identifies stability rather than change in issue ownership over time and similarity more than difference across countries, and therefore suggests that issue ownership is a general and long-term rather than a local and short-term phenomenon. The implications for how voters perceive parties are important.

A series of persuasive events. Sequencing effects of negative and positive messages on party evaluations and perceptions of negativity

Abstract We test how party evaluations and perceptions of negativity are affected by sequences of positive/negative persuasive messages. In an experimental survey collected in Denmark, respondents were exposed to either a positive or a negative message on three issues in a random order; this creates a setting where we can test for the effects of eight different sequences of positive and/or negative messages. We find consistent effects. Being exposed to a higher volume of negative messages often depresses evaluations of the target, whereas being exposed to a higher volume of positive messages enhances evaluation of the sponsor. These effects are nuanced by recency effects: when a sequence ends on a negative message, regardless of its overall valence, evaluation of the target is depressed; similarly, negatively valenced sequences harm the target except when the sequence ends on a positive message. Backlash effects are unlikely, and no sequence simultaneously harms the target and promotes a positive evaluation of the sponsor. Finally, negatively valenced sequences of messages enhance perceptions of negativity, whereas positively valenced sequences do not reduce it; this trend is also nuanced by recency effects.

Do voters learn? Evidence that voters respond accurately to changes in political parties’ policy positions

Abstract A premise of the mass–elite linkage at the heart of representative democracy is that voters notice changes in political parties’ policy positions and update their party perceptions accordingly. However, recent studies question the ability of voters accurately to perceive changes in parties’ positions. The study advances this literature with a two-wave panel survey design that measured voters’ perception of party positions before and after a major policy shift by parties in the government coalition in Denmark 2011–2013. Two key findings extend previous work. First, voters do indeed pay attention to parties when they visibly change policy position. Second, voters update their perceptions of the party positions much more accurately than would have been expected if they merely relied on a ‘coalition heuristic’ as a rule-of-thumb. These findings imply that under some conditions voters are better able to make meaningful political choices than previous work suggests.

Cooperation between counterparts in parliament from an agenda-setting perspective: legislative coalitions as a trade of criticism and policy

Abstract Governments may bargain with parties in parliament to silence them. This insight follows from the agenda-setting literature, which emphasises the power of the opposition to criticise the government. The literature on legislatures points to the fear of loss of future voter support as a motivation for majority building. However, it does not name factors that can cause such uncertainty. One such factor is opposition criticism. This article argues that majority building does not only involve an exchange of policy support; governments use legislative coalitions to dampen unwanted opposition blame. By offering the opposition noteworthy policy influence in legislative coalitions, governments avoid opposition criticism in return, in addition to having initiatives passed. In order to test this argument, a large dataset is compiled on opposition criticism in parliament and the media before and after the 325 bargained legislative agreements settled in Denmark from 1973 to 2003. It is found that such agreements are more likely amidst opposition criticism and that they dampen opposition criticism.

What can a government do? Government issue ownership and real‐world problems

Despite major interest in issue ownership, what shapes it remains a puzzle. In his pioneering work on issue ownership, John Petrocik emphasises the importance of a partys performance. Recent research acknowledges this by pointing to the role of real-world problems and incumbency for issue ownership. However, if performance truly matters, it should be difficult to understand the impact of such problems without taking into account the governments response to it. Based on novel data on issue ownership, policy development and government attention across five issues in nine countries over time, the analysis shows that the governments issue-handling reputation is associated with the policy development, and the governments attention to the problem is important for this association. This is especially true for parties with no history of issue ownership on the issue and if the government is a coalition or in minority.

Opposition Policy Influence through Agenda-setting: The Environment in Denmark, 1993–2009

This article addresses the opportunities that the opposition has to influence policy – a topic that has been neglected in existing party policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable environmental policy development during the Danish right-wing government in the 2000s. Contrary to its position when it took office in 2001, the right-wing government turned green and adopted a series of green policy initiatives. It is argued in this article that vehement and persistent criticism from the left-wing opposition provides an explanation for this turn. Taking media coverage, public opinion, carbon dioxide emissions and the governments approval ratings into account, the empirical estimation based on unique quarterly data shows that opposition criticism had a systematic impact on the governments pro-environmental policy development. The implications for party policy research are important. If the aim is to understand how parties matter to policy, the opposition should be taken more seriously.

The impact of opposition criticism on the public’s evaluation of government competence

An impressive literature examines how voters evaluate government performance based on its record. Yet this literature rarely studies the role of party communication for how voters use social problems to evaluate a government. In response, this article studies the importance of party communication. Using British monthly data from 2004 to 2013 across four issues, the analysis shows that social problems such as growing unemployment increasingly undermine voters’ approval of government competence on this issue when opposition criticism intensifies. In fact, social problems do not systematically influence voters’ evaluations of government competence unless opposition criticism is taken into account. This suggests an important role of opposition communication in representative democracy where the opposition helps voters hold the government to account.