Thursday, July 9, 2015
H202A (28 rue des Saints-Pères)
Electoral manifestos are traditionally considered as a good indicator of parties’ positions and evolutions in the space of electoral competition. This paper underlines the interest of retaining a less fixed and frozen approach of programmatic texts, by including a whole series of secondary documents (products of parties' specialized organs, internal press, media interventions of party leaders and policy specialists). This enlarged corpus contributes to frame and stabilize the meaning of the programmatic offer.
This paper will focus on the proposals of the Socialist Party candidate Hollande regarding tax policies during the 2012 French presidential election campaign, from the general pledge to a « fiscal Revolution » to the proposal of a 75% income tax on top earners. Far from being reduced to a simple paragraph in the program, the fiscal proposals of the socialist candidate are the result of intrapartisan competition (socialist primaries), electoral dynamics (the conservative incumbent’s record and the rising opinion polls' results of the far left candidate), and of the dominant media framing (public debt vs. redistribution). This programmatic offer also varies and can be seen as a policy issue, an identity mark, or a medium for controversy.
By focusing on the conditions of production of programmatic texts rather than on the manifesto itself, and by adopting a qualitative approach to the study of programmatic strategies (through interviews, documentary analyses and the study of national press), this paper shows that a policy offer which is never given once and for all.
This paper will focus on the proposals of the Socialist Party candidate Hollande regarding tax policies during the 2012 French presidential election campaign, from the general pledge to a « fiscal Revolution » to the proposal of a 75% income tax on top earners. Far from being reduced to a simple paragraph in the program, the fiscal proposals of the socialist candidate are the result of intrapartisan competition (socialist primaries), electoral dynamics (the conservative incumbent’s record and the rising opinion polls' results of the far left candidate), and of the dominant media framing (public debt vs. redistribution). This programmatic offer also varies and can be seen as a policy issue, an identity mark, or a medium for controversy.
By focusing on the conditions of production of programmatic texts rather than on the manifesto itself, and by adopting a qualitative approach to the study of programmatic strategies (through interviews, documentary analyses and the study of national press), this paper shows that a policy offer which is never given once and for all.
