Patterns of issue competition in complex multiparty systems

Political Science

PhD defence ceremony

Why did the meltdown of three reactors at Fukushima lead to significant politicisation of the issue of nuclear energy in Germany, but hardly elicit any political attention in France? Why did immigration become one of the most important issues in the Dutch political debate at the beginning of the century, but has European integration only become politicised much more recently? Both examples demonstrate that considerable variation exists in the attention dynamics for issues across countries over time. By placing his PhD thesis within the growing body of literature on issue competition, Marc van de Wardt aims to test to what extent the issue competition framework stemming from the context of US two-party competition can be extended to more complex multiparty systems. To do so, he identifies four tactics lying at the heart of this perspective.

M. van de Wardt, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Patterns of Issue Competition Between Government, Challenger and Mainstream Opposition Parties in Western Europe.

Supervisor

Prof. W. van der Brug

Co-supervisors

Prof. C.E. de Vries
Dr S.L. de Lange

Entrance

This event is open to the public.

Published by  University of Amsterdam