ABSTRACT
This chapter examines why the protection of human rights is losing prominence in election campaigns as apparent from the declining percentage of text devoted to this issue in political parties' manifestos. The research presented questions whether the decline of a human rights platform may in part be attributed to the phenomenon of voter de-alignment and the increasing need for parties to make their programmes more broadly appealing to median voters. Empirical patterns from the Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) dataset reveal a negative association between positive references to the variable freedom and human rights in party manifestos and the percentage of votes that parties receive at parliamentary elections. The stronger negative association in those States that are members of the EU and/or Council of Europe also demonstrates that this issue has become more politicised in Europe and perhaps linked to Euroscepticism.
