Such a situation is observed elsewhere in the world, with this process of ‘party renewal’ being ‘complicated by the political baggage a major party carries from a previous period in office’ (p.2). Rightwing parties often carry such heavy political baggage due to ‘the unpopular policy positions of a previous government…. [which] may remain entrenched in the public imagination’ (p.2). Hence, ‘parties have sought to “rebrand” themselves in order to publicly signify a definitive break with the failures associated with their previous periods in office’ (p.1).
Broome’s study of the rebranding process for National is meant to be a case study that will speak to the need for rebranding of rightwing parties in other similar countries. He gives examples where both rightwing and leftwing parties are discredited by past political baggage and hence kept out of government: ‘the British elections in 1992 and 2005, the Australian election in 2004, or the New Zealand election in 2005’ (p.18).
National’s rebranding: Valence vs positional issues
Yet eventually, ‘several important elements gradually coalesced to help improve the public identity of the National Party brand. These included: (1) generational change in the parliamentary party; (2) policy differentiation on issues where National was able to win the public argument; and (3) the transformation of a series of former positional issues that significantly disadvantaged National into valence issues’ (p.12).
This included clearly signaling the party’s support, at least for the duration of its first term in government, for retaining Kiwibank… the Cullen superannuation fund… public ownership of key national assets… KiwiSaver… Working for Families… and interest-free student loans. These policy shifts effectively transformed controversial positional issues into valence issues, at the same time as diminishing the Labour government’s political advantage on the use of public funds in key spending areas. Precisely because these changes cut against the grain of National’s policy orientation during its previous period in government, reducing voters’ uncertainty over the future of popular policy programs also helped demarcate the “new” National brand from its (largely) discredited neoliberal reform agenda of the 1990s (pp.15-16).
Increase in the political marketing approach
parties in established democracies have increasingly turned to expert consultants, opinion poll data, and focus group research to provide the raw materials for rebuilding, or, less substantively, repackaging, their “party brand” to increase the public appeal of their policy platform (p.3).
In fact, everywhere, ‘the effective brand management of party identities has recently become a more salient factor in electoral competition across a range of difficult countries’ (p.6). Broome states that branding strategies have gained in importance due to the following four political changes in the dynamics of party competition in liberal industrialized countries:
- The decline of “tribal politics” where old voting constituencies are reduced, and swing voters more important to parties.
- A process of “de-industrialisation” associated ‘with a decline in the relevance of “left/right” social cleavages. ‘This may enhance the salience of political issues such as climate change, criminal justice policy, immigration, and foreign policy that cannot simply be slotted into a left/right matrix’ (p.7).
- The ‘emergence of a neoliberal consensus on economic policy, concomitant with a comparative decline in ideological debate and political contestation over “big ideas” with respect to macroeconomic frameworks among parties of different political hues across a number of countries… In short, major political parties in some countries are now viewed as having relatively less “clear blue water” between their preferences with respect to key components of macroeconomic policy than previously… Yet with the emergence of broad cross-party support for the mainstays of a country’s macroeconomic framework, party brands may have become more salient than ideological appeals on the basis of substantive differences in economic policy orientation in competition for votes, due to the lack of policy alternatives on offer’ (p.7).
- A ‘growing prominence of valence issues, areas where different political parties may espouse the same policy goals – which have strong appeal to voters – but compete over their claims to be competent to deliver on these share goals’ (p.7).
Obviously there’s some important issues and arguments made here, and it’s worth reading the paper in full for a better understanding of them.