Issue Attention in West European Party Politics

The CMP dataset has long been used to study of West European party politics. The consequences of the coding scheme on which the CMP dataset is based has received little attention in discussions. With the development of the CAP data, which includes coding of party manifestos, a comparison of the CMP dataset to CAP coding of identical documents is now possible. The level of attention to various policy issues is relatively similar, but with important exceptions. A similar pattern is identified when looking at the correlation between the two measures on similar issues. The exceptions can be traced to differences in the coding systems in terms of the specific categories included and in terms of the theoretical perspectives behind the coding systems. Using the CMP dataset to measure issue attention requires caution. A major limitation is that attention to a number of issues cannot be identified in the CMP dataset.