Political Parties' Rhetoric Signaling of Sustainable Development

This study analyzes how frequently political parties in Austria, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Switzerland referred to the concept of sustainable development in their manifestos for national elections from 1976 to 2011. Has the frequency of reference to the concept grown over time? Does an increase in frequency still allow for a clear demarcation between political parties representing different ideologies? These two research questions guide our empirical analysis, which strives to integrate sustainability research with comparative politics. Using automated content analysis, we demonstrate that all political parties – irrespective of their placement on the ideology scale – have made increasing rhetoric use of sustainable development over time. Our findings indicate that sustainable development does not serve as a dimension for competition among political parties. Since all political parties send the same rhetoric signals, voters must rely on alternative voting cues than a parties' rhetorical reference to the concept of sustainable development. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment