Nationalism, Class, and Status: How Nationalists Use Policy Offers and Group Appeals to Attract a New Electorate

Abstract

How do nationalist parties attract votes? This article develops a novel supply-side explanation centered on status, arguing that nationalists succeed by combining group appeals to the nation with policy promises to improve the nation’s political and cultural status and the socio-economic status of its median member. Drawing on several original datasets, this expectation is tested on Imperial Austria in 1907, where multiple nationalist parties competed in first-time mass elections. We find that group appeals to the nation and promises to improve its political and cultural status resonate very well with agricultural workers, whose economic sector was declining, but not with industrial workers, whose sector was on the rise. By contrast, offering social policy helps nationalists among industrial workers, but less clearly so among agricultural workers. This article shows that nationalist mobilization is not a mere distraction from class politics; rather, the politics of nationalism, class, and status are closely intertwined.

Parties’ group appeals across time, countries, and communication channels—examining appeals to social groups via the Parties’ Group Appeals Dataset

“…And in Stückelberger (2019), group appeals are “parties’ or candidates’ explicit stated support or criticism of group categories” (45). Locating these appeals within a party competition framework and understanding them as part of parties' electoral strategies (also see: Huber, 2021), both scholars follow previous works that examine appeals to groups in generalized political competition (Dickson and Scheve, 2006; Horn et al, 2021; Howe et al, 2022; Stoll, 2010) or as appeals to specific social groups (Domke and Coe, 2008; Evans and Tilley, 2017; McIlwain and Caliendo, 2011), but do not define group appeals as a distinct concept. Other related studies examine parties’ generalized targeting strategies during election campaigns (Hersh and Schaffner, 2013; Rhodes and Johnson, 2015), as well as gender-based (Holman et al, 2015; Kam et al, 2017), or ethnicity-based targeting (Nteta and Schaffner, 2013; Valenzuela and Michelson, 2016), but these too do not define group appeals as a distinct concept.…”

Patriotism and National Symbols in Russian and Ukrainian Elections

“…However, we tend to acknowledge the intertwined nature of patriotism and nationalism (Bieber, 2018;Ernst et al, 2019;Howe et al, 2022;Kizilova & Norris, 2023), recognizing that these concepts often overlap.…”

“…Nationalists combine appeals to the nation with policy promises, addressing political, cultural, and socio-economic concerns (Howe et al, 2022). They strategically shape perceptions of the social order and divert attention from class identities.…”

European integration and political party logos: A ‘visual Europeanization’?

“…Furthermore, party-level factors may play a role in shaping the propensity to showcase certain types of imagery. Right-wing parties, for instance, may be less willing to relinquish the symbols of their recently acquired national independence, especially in times when their core voters may consider the sovereignty and national identity threatened (Howe et al, 2021). By contrast, left-wing parties may have developed strong incentives to abandon the symbolic apparatus of communism already after the demise of the Soviet Union (Grzymala-Busse and Luong, 2002; Wolinetz, 2015).…”