Electoral mobilisation in turbulent times

This symposium examines how European parties mobilize electorally in an era of recurrent crises and rapid political transformation. Building on the updated PolDem dataset, which tracks media coverage of national election campaigns across fifteen European countries from 1972 to 2023, the symposium investigates how issue salience, party positioning, and voter behaviour interact under turbulent conditions. The introduction situates the contributions around three core themes: (1) measuring and comparing party communication across media and manifestos; (2) mapping cross-national and longitudinal variation in political conflict lines; and (3) identifying the drivers of politicization across economic, cultural, and political dimensions. Together, the articles offer an integrated, content-based perspective on campaign dynamics that links short-term issue emphasis to long-term party-system structuration. The collection advances our understanding of how crises reshape electoral competition and democratic representation in Europe.