Explaining Issue Salience of Party Manifestos in Multi-Level Settings: A Cross-national Study Takayoshi Uekami, Okayama University Asako Takashima, The University of Tokyo Hiroki Ogawa, Kochi University Masako Tanaka, The University of Tokyo Yu Ajishi, The University of Tokyo Abstract The main purpose of this paper is to clarify what brings about an even or uneven appearance of various policies, namely, issue salience, in election manifestos when political parties reconcile external demand from voters, internal organizational interests, and institutional requirements. In this sense, this paper approaches the much debated 'issue salience' theory from the side of political parties. At first, by utilizing the Manifesto Project Dataset (MPD), we will construct our dependent variable; the degree of issue coverage which is measured by the variance of percentages allotted to each policy area. Secondly, by exploiting the Political Party Database (PPDB), which includes 122 parties in 19 countries mainly from Europe, we will create index variables as our independent variables. These variables measure the degree of coordination by its national and local organizations and of articulation of functional interests when a party makes decisions. Besides that, we will incorporate the following nation-wide variables; district magnitude and proportional representation of lower house election, degree of influence of regional governments, inconsistency of electoral systems between national and regional elections, and ethnic and religious diversity. In doing so, we will try to answer the followings; Do the institutional variables influence the composition of a party manifesto? Does a party with better local connections incorporate their interests? Or does a party just follow the ideological inclinations of voters? It can safely be said that there are affirmative answers to these questions. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Takayoshi Uekami. Contact: uekamit@okayama-u.ac.jp