Parrot Parties: Established Parties’ Co-optation of Other Parties’ Policy Proposals

Abstract

This chapter revolves around parties imitating each other. In particular, it is about established parties imitating a challenger party in terms of its core policy issue position. It begins from summarising theory and previous work about such “parroting.” It continues with proof of imitation in 15 contemporary West European countries and zooms in on several empirical examples. This chapter then discusses possible causes of imitation, and ends with suggested effects on the electoral support for the imitated parties, introducing the “parrot hypothesis.”