The role of social groups in politics: what parties offer and how voters respond

Abstract

Over the last decades, the role of social groups has become increasingly important in modern democratic society and politics. Yet, we still know surprisingly little about the evolution of the linkages between parties and social groups, under consideration of the socially given variety of groups. These linkages need to be examined from both the perspective of appeals in electoral programs, political speeches or social media and the use of group-based heuristics by citizens to make sense of this supply. This panel brings together scholars working on the role of social groups, and more particularly of group targeting, in electoral politics by looking at the supply and demand side of political competition. Regarding the former, this panel seeks to contribute to the following questions: which kind of voters do parties address and how does this change over time? How do parties combine policy issues and group appeals? Regarding the demand side, it is asked how voters’ group identities are shaped by political competition and how voters react to group targeting in electoral campaign and with regard to the (non-)fulfilment of election pledges. Of particular interest for this panel is the interplay between both, the demand and the supply side. Both sides are certainly not independent from each other: citizens react to parties and their offer, and the other way around. This panel is characterized by papers that employ different innovative methods for investigating the role of social groups in politics. These methodological approaches range from (semi-)automated text analysis of electoral programs, speeches in parliament and social media data to survey experiments.

Title	Details
How party competition shapes voters’ group identities and electoral preferences	View Paper Details
The best of both worlds: How parties combine policy issues and group appeals	View Paper Details
Promissory representation and group politics: A survey experimental test on voters’ reactions to group targeted pledge performances	View Paper Details
What is your agenda?’ How political parties use commitments to credibly change their issue priorities	View Paper Details
Ratchet-effects” in party responses to economic inequality? Reconciling rival views using new data on equality concepts	View Paper Details