The Dynamics of Voter Preferences and Party Leader Positions.

How and why do the policy positions of parties change? We have good theoretical reasons to expect that political parties adopt policy positions in response to the preferences of voters, since voters are likely to prefer parties that have ideological positions that most resemble their own. At the aggregate level, this leads to the prediction that parties shift their positions towards the median voter's bliss point. Extensive research has documented that parties adjust their ideological position in response to public opinion shifts. Yet, such empirical research has tended to lack sufficiently long time-series of party positions to systematically examine the dynamics of party positions over time. This leaves a number of questions still to be further explored, such as: when do parties shift their ideological positions? Are parties more responsive to the median voter or to party supporters? Does the responsiveness of parties to voters depend on the electoral cycle? This paper examines these questions using time-series data on party leader positions from 1973-2008 in Denmark and Britain. We find that party leaders adjust their positions in the direction of the median voter, and that the extent of this adjustment is greater in election years. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]