West European Politics in the Age of Globalization

Tables B.1 to B.12 present the data used for the MDS analyses, that is, the positions of parties on the twelve issue categories, as well as the salience with which they addressed these issues. The average issue positions are measured on a scale ranging from –1 to +1, with positive values indicating support for the corresponding aim, as expressed by the name of the issue category (for economic liberalism, for the welfare state, etc.). The salience of an issue for a given party is the percentage of issue statements of this party regarding this issue. Thus, the saliencies presented in this table sum to 100% for each party in each election. We present saliencies in this way as they make it easier to compare the profile of different parties. For the MDS analyses, however, these saliencies were further multiplied by the percentage of issue statements of the corresponding party in a given election (which are indicated on the right hand side of the tables). In this way, the saliencies sum to 1 for each election and indicate the relative importance of a party × issue combination in the overall campaign.