Abstract
Many studies analysing partisan politics assume differing preferences based on parties’ ideological backgrounds without providing matching empirical analysis. This is especially true for specialized policy areas like higher education policy, which are often not included in large comparative analysis of manifestos addressing core policies. Additionally, the limited existing literature that includes higher education focuses only on the re-distributive dimension of partisan competition. However, the main theoretical argument of this article is that in order to fully capture partisan dynamics, it is necessary to include a second analytical dimension, addressing the question how higher education is governed. Based on this framework, theoretical expectations for partisan preferences of different party families are deduced. Subsequently, these expectations are tested using originally coded election manifestos and a qualitative content analysis for all relevant parties in four European countries (the UK, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands). The findings show that parties do hold differing preferences which can be structured along two dimensions. While many parties fulfil the theoretical expectations, there is also a fair amount of variation within party families, which can be explained by pointing to the importance of institutions, their legacies, and the resulting constraints for the formation of partisan preferences.