STRATEGIC POSITION CHANGE AND ELECTORAL SUCCESS A quantitative study on the consequences of political position change in Sweden

Abstract

As new parties emerge in the European political landscape, they force existing parties to reconsider old issues and position themselves on new ones. This research paper analyzes the relationship between electoral support and political parties’ position change in two dimensions. While previous research has mostly focused on how position change influence electoral support in general, less is known about how position change on issues part of the primary respectively the secondary dimension influence electoral support. The paper rests on the expectation that parties are ideologically constrained to the issues on their primary dimension, and thus have an easier time responding to public opinion on the secondary dimension issues. In order to test the hypotheses, I have used time series regression analysis, focusing on Sweden, from elections 1982 until 2018. The hypotheses are supported in some of the political parties under study; however, the results are not statistically significant.