{"id":2635,"date":"2015-09-08T15:36:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T15:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2015-09-08T15:36:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T15:36:29","slug":"what-explains-the-decline-of-bright-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/2015\/09\/08\/what-explains-the-decline-of-bright-future\/","title":{"rendered":"What explains the decline of Bright Future?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2012, a left-center party was created under the name <em>Bj\u00f6rt Framt\u00ed\u00f0<\/em> (Bright Future) and performed very well in the 2013 general election (winning six seats in the Althing). Polls show gradually declining support for the party throughout 2014 and a steep\u00a0decline in 2015. Many would attribute this decline to the popularity (or lack thereof) of the party chairman, Gu\u00f0mundur Steingr\u00edmsson. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visir.is\/ekki-haegt-ad-skrifa-fylgishrunid-a-gudmund\/article\/2015150829446\">In an interview with <em>St\u00f6\u00f0 2 - Fr\u00e9ttir<\/em> (Channel Two News)<\/a>, I offered a skeptical view of this explanation.<\/p>\n<p>In short, (i) people overestimate the importance of party leaders and underestimate that of party policy; (ii) Bright Future's\u00a0leader had not been noticeably criticized in social media (unlike several other party leaders) prior to steep decline\u00a0in party support; (iii) Mr. Steingr\u00edmsson stays active in public discourse and has not failed in bringing attention to the party's policies; (iv) <a href=\"http:\/\/imgur.com\/a\/6hD7J\">centrist parties struggle across Europe<\/a>; and (v) history shows that Icelandic\u00a0splinter parties (of which there have been many on the left) rarely last long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2012, a left-center party was created under the name Bj\u00f6rt Framt\u00ed\u00f0 (Bright Future) and performed very well in the 2013 general election (winning six seats in the Althing). Polls show gradually declining support for the party throughout 2014 and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/2015\/09\/08\/what-explains-the-decline-of-bright-future\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":360,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/360"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2636,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions\/2636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/baldurt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}