Replication Data for: What makes parties adapt to voter preferences? The role of party organisation, goals and ideology

The landmark study by Adams et al. (2006) finds that niche parties are unresponsive to the median voter and provides two theoretical reasons for this pattern: these parties are (1) more policy-seeking and (2) more influenced by their activists. Recent research adds that niche parties have narrow issue appeals beyond the traditional left-right dimension, implying that these parties pay less attention to the left-right median voter. We test these three mechanisms in a replication and extension of the original findings by Adams et al. (2006). We find that policy-seeking parties and parties with a narrow issue focus are less likely to track median voter changes, while activist influence has no moderating effect. This finding has important implications for our understanding of party responsiveness.