Issue clarity in electoral competition. Insights from Austria

•I look at issue clarity - the amount of specific pledges - in parties' manifestos.•Issue clarity complements and expands the literature on issue saliency.•More extreme parties present programs with a higher share of pledges.•Moderate parties in government present programs with a lower share of pledges.•Issue ownership does not affect parties' willingness to make pledges.

This paper analyses parties' policy supply in electoral campaigns. In so doing, it proposes to look at issue clarity which is defined as the share of objectively testable pledges within an election manifesto. The main argument states that parties not only decide their positions and issue saliencies, but also the level of specificity with which they present their policies. The data come from Austria (1990-2008) and, thus, provide a good example for a Western European multi-party system with proportional representation. The analyses show that extreme parties present manifestos with higher issue clarity compared to moderate parties. Furthermore, this result is strengthened by a party's role in government. Issue ownership, however, seems to have no effect on issue clarity.