A formal model of party competition with salience

Recent empirical research points at the significance of issue salience for party competition and argues that small parties emphasize secondary issues. This article investigates parties’ salience strategies from a formal viewpoint. It presents a model of party competition that allows parties to compete with policy positions on a second dimension, and also to choose an optimal level of issue salience. Equilibrium results are computed based on artificial data. The results identify various relevant factors for policy divergence and emphasis on the second policy issue dimension, notably the structure of public opinion and non-policy related valence differences. The results suggest that it is not only challenger parties at the fringe, but also valence-advantaged parties that seek to push the salience of secondary policy issues.