How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015

Abstract

Political parties often appeal to groups. Yet, existing work does not consider how such group-based appeals are used, presumably because they are thought to have grown ineffective. Contrary to this, I argue that group-based appeals are central to party electoral strategy, and that time has only strengthened the incentive to use them. Using original data on 10,000 group-based appeals found in sentence-by-sentence coding of British election manifestos, I demonstrate an increasing use of group-based appeals from 1964 to 2015. Furthermore, I show that the range of groups emphasized, the concentration of group emphasis, and the specific group categories targeted also follow the electoral incentives prevalent over this 50-year period. These findings shed new light on how political parties appeal for votes and suggest that we view group-based appeals as a distinctive feature of party electoral strategy. I discuss the implications for our broader understanding of electoral competition.

What drives partisan conflict and consensus on welfare state issues?

“…By contrast, policies that primarily affect groups with lower perceived deservingness (the poor, the unemployed and nonnatives) produce much greater partisan differences. These results are in line with recent studies showing that parties tailor their appeals to specific social groups (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Thau, 2019). Third, no differences were found for policies with different distributive logics.…”

Who Gets What: The Economy, Relative Gains and Brexit

“…As Mutz and Mondak (1997, 286) put it, 'private economic experience is not, by itself, politically potent'; however, 'groups may serve as essential mediating entities, making it possible for people to politicize the economic interests of those like them without necessarily relying directly on personal economic experience'. Political decisions benefit the interests of different groups and areas; this is the very basis of political competition and representation (Thau 2019). Groups provide a way for voters to learn about the outcomes of government policy, a means through which voters can reward or punish a government for its advocacy for or against different groups, and they provide a heuristic for wider assessments.…”

Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters

“…Working class appeals were a politically sound strategy for the candidates in our studies, as they attracted working class voters and had little backlash effect on upper-middle class voters. But even though leftist parties and candidates continue to use class appeals, they target classes less than previously (Thau, 2019). Why has this type of elite rhetoric been toned down over the last few decades?…”

“…Nonetheless, election results became less dependent on the shrinking working class as the millennium approached. Politicians, especially those on the left, talked less about class in their campaign rhetoric and voting behavior depolarized along class lines (Best, 2011; Evans & Tilley, 2017; Thau, 2019). This led some to argue that class politics was dying if not dead already (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Clark et al, 1993; Listhaug, 1997; but see Bartels, 2016; Hout, 2008, and Piston, 2018 for a contrasting take).…”