Signaling Policy Positions in Election Campaigns

Election campaigns constitute an opportunity for political parties to announce shifts in policy positions and thereby change their policy image. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that the overall relationship between party campaign platforms and voter per-ceptions of party positions is weak. This paper provides a novel explanation for this by showing that the effectiveness of party rhetoric hinges on the direction of the pol-icy shift. I argue that voters anticipate parties ’ electoral incentives to move in the policy space and discount movements towards vote-increasing positions as opportunis-tic. Focusing on mainstream political parties in Western Europe, I show that voters heavily discount platforms announcing a centrist shift. In contrast, movements away from the center generate substantial changes in voter perceptions. This paper is part of a broader project that examines the conditions under which parties can use their campaign rhetoric to reshape their policy reputations