Managing the grumbles: The role of intra-party dissent and leader domination on salience strategies in Western Europe

Abstract

Does intra-party dissent affect parties’ salience strategies? And if so, do leadership-dominated parties de-emphasize a divisive issue dimension more than activist-dominated ones? Scholars have long highlighted the role of intra-party dissent in informing parties’ salience strategies. However, the literature has overwhelmingly focused on EU issues while devoting less attention to the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of party competition. I argue that, driven by the imperative of projecting unity and ensuring survival, parties facing internal dissent over an issue dimension reduce the emphasis attributed to it. Importantly, the effectiveness of this strategy hinges on the control party leaders wield over their parties’ platforms. Focusing on 15 Western European countries and 130 political parties, the findings confirm that higher levels of intra-party dissent are associated with lower emphasis awarded to the divisive issue dimension. The pooled results also suggest that markedly leadership-dominated parties are more effective in de-emphasizing a divisive dimension than activist-dominated ones. However, I find less robust evidence for the latter finding when testing the model separately for the two dimensions.