CHANGES IN PARTY IDENTITY - EVIDENCE FROM PARTY MANIFESTOS

Political folklore holds that political parties often try to change th eir images following a disastrous election defeat. This paper inquires into the truth of this common assumption through a systematic analysi s of manifestos promulgated by eight parties in Britain, Germany and t he USA prior to national elections in the 1950s through 1980s. Each el ection was classified as triumphal, gratifying, tolerable, disappointi ng or calamitous from the standpoint of each party. The change in part y images for adjacent elections was assessed by correlating the percen tages of sentences devoted to standard political themes in the pair of manifestos. We tested the hypothesis that parties were most likely to change their policy images following disappointing or calamitous elec tions. Our findings suggest that poor electoral performance was not a sufficient condition to produce a major overhaul of party images, but poor performance in the prior election was virtually necessary to prod uce major change in policy packaging at the next election.