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Political parties face strategic decisions about whether to campaign on issue-based appeals , pertaining to debates over such issues as economic, immigration, and environmental policies, versus valence-based appeals , emphasizing leadership attributes, such as character (integrity, honesty, and so on), along with performance, that is, the ability to deliver positive outcomes. To better understand these choices, we analyze parties' national election campaign strategies across ten Western European democracies. We argue for, and empirically substantiate, an: our issues versus their valence effect, that is, that parties' self-presentations will be more issue-based than their presentations of opponents; an extremist party issue focus effect, that is, that parties with more extreme ideologies most strongly emphasize issues over valence in their self-presentations; and a prime ministerial valence focus effect , that is, that prime ministerial parties more strongly self-present on valence. These findings have implications for election outcomes and mass–elite linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How parties compete by utilizing frames in the public debate is not well understood. A widespread understanding is that parties tend to compete by talking past each other, i.e. when they utilize dissimilar frames. This article relies on a unique data set of parties' framing of four individual policy questions over two decades in Denmark to examine frame overlap, i.e. when parties adopt similar frames. Results show that parties utilize similar and dissimilar frames in the public debate. However, a high degree of frame similarity was generally found across parliamentary blocs (between the leading mainstream party from each bloc, their leading junior coalition partner, and the two blocs) and most often a very high degree of overlap was found within parliamentary blocs (between the leading mainstream party and its junior coalition partner). This result suggests a need to rethink thoroughly how to understand and study interaction among parties utilizing frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key element of democracy is citizens exchanging viewpoints on political matters. Yet, we know little about how individuals respond to interpersonal political disagreement with peers: do they avoid it or yield, try to dominate others, or seek compromise? Based on two surveys with random assignment to different political statements, we study how individuals respond to interpersonal political disagreement on party choice and issue disagreement. The results from both surveys show that individuals are more likely to yield and dominate when the level of political disagreement is at a respectively low and high level. Citizens are more willing to seek compromise at low and moderate levels of disagreement, while avoiding is unrelated to the level of political disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The news media's ability to mobilise citizens to participate politically by emphasising elite conflict in politics is not well understood. This article argues that citizens may gain knowledge when exposed to conflict news framing. It further theorises that whether they translate their knowledge into political participation is conditioned by their orientation towards conflict. Individuals who avoid conflict participate less frequently than individuals who do not. The proposed moderated mediation process was tested using a content analysis of news media coverage and a three-wave panel survey (n = 2,061). Results show that the effect of exposure to conflict news framing on (changes in) political participation is positively mediated by knowledge. This mediation effect is moderated by conflict avoidance, where the effect is more positive among conflict non-avoiders than conflict avoiders. This study shows that understanding the news media's mobilising effect on political participation requires attention to both news content and individual motivational factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]