Learning at Home and Abroad: How Competition Conditions the Diffusion of Party Strategies

How do parties decide when to campaign on valence issues given high degrees of uncertainty? Although past studies have provided evidence transnational emulation parties' position-taking strategies, these findings not directly apply saliency strategies. Moreover, the exact diffusion mechanism remains largely elusive. Based issue literature, this study develops novel theoretical propositions and argues that conscious learning enables infer relative utility emphasizing consensual during an electoral campaign. The proposed theory gives rise different expectations at domestic levels because distinct logic competition. By analyzing environmental emphasis in party manifestos, authors find direct dependencies indirect spillover effects among They identify learning, rather than mere imitation or independent decision making, as work. Yet, line with saliency-based theories, competition mutes strategies domestically.