Perceptions of parties’ left-right positions: The impact of salience strategies

The left-right dimension is widely used by voters and parties as a ‘super-issue’ with flexible, varying meaning. Hence, it is important to know how voters place parties on the left-right dimension. We argue that voters infer left-right party positions from their positions on two key ideological subdimensions: economic and cultural issues. However, a subdimension should influence party placements on the left-right dimension more if the subdimension is important (1) to the party and (2) in the party system as a whole. In aggregate-level models using voter data from the 2014 European Election Study and party data from the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we show that perceived left-right position of a party reflects in particular party positions on issue dimensions that are (1) more important to the party and (2) more salient in the party system. This finding provides insight into the sources of voter perceptions and has wider implications for our understanding of party competition, as we show how parties’ salience strategies can have consequences for position-based ideological perceptions and voting decisions.