Avoiding or engaging problems? Issue ownership, problem indicators, and party issue competition

Issue competition theories posit that political parties have little incentive to emphasize the same issues, because they mostly benefit from emphasizing issues where they are viewed as more competent. In contrast, a number of empirical studies find considerable overlap in parties' issues emphasis. Aiming to bridge this peculiar gap, this paper suggests that the development of exogenous problems is one factor that constrains parties' incentives to talk past each other. Using comprehensive data on party attention to ten issues across six West European countries from approximately 1980 and onwards, the analysis shows that problems moderate the relationship between parties' issue reputations and their issue emphases. When problems are moderate, parties selectively focus on different issues, but when problems become severe, parties across the board attend to an issue. That even includes parties that do not own the issue. These results have reassuring implications for parties' responsiveness to societal problems that negatively affect the welfare of citizens.