| dc.description.abstract | This paper is an effort to determine the purposes of party manifestos (aka platforms), and more specifically how a party’s experience in governance determines the strategies they pursue, through the structure of their manifesto, to achieve their party goals. This is an important issue in the field of political science research because, while there have been mass amounts of research dedicated to understanding the contents of party manifestos, there has been very little research concerned with why parties produce manifestos. This paper intends to determine the amount of variation there is among party platforms to the extent to which the party is using the document to give an overview of their entire program for running the government, including all aspects of government policy, or to shore up their support base by focusing on a few key issues. By determining if there is a relationship between a party’s experience in government and the strategy they pursue in writing their manifesto, this study hopes to determine why parties focus on the issues they do, and how party strategies, exemplified in manifesto structure, indicate the purpose that party manifestos may serve. | en |
