Can election pledges attract voters to a new party?

Election pledges play an important role in models of representative democracy, as they link the policy offers of parties to voter preferences. According to these models, election pledges enable voters to choose the party representing their preferences before the election and then hold it responsible for keeping or breaking their election pledges at the next election (Mansbridge, 2003). Previous studies have shown that heterogeneous vs. homogeneous election pledges have effects on voter turnout and protest voting intentions (Schnepf et al., forthcoming). So far, however, it has not been examined whether the election pledges of a party can actually attract voters to it. One reason for that are difficulties with measuring the effect of election pledges on vote choice since voters know (or think to know) the political stances of parties. Therefore we make use of the German case where there is to date no party with a high potential to enter the federal parliament that is leftist on the classical socioeconomic dimension (i.e., being in favor of the state intervening in the market) and rightist on a societal libertarian vs. authoritarian dimension (i.e., for example being against immigration, a multicultural society, LGBTQ rights) (Hillen & Steiner, 2020). Using an experimental design (N = 600) we present a fake new party with this novel policy position to participants, either via showing election pledges of the party or by informing participants of the new party via a news article. After the treatment we ask participants about their evaluation of the party and if they would vote for it. We expect that participants supporting Die Linke or the AFD will be attracted by the fake party. Moreover, we expect presenting information on the new party in form of a news article to be more convincing than election pledges since many citizens do not trust parties to keep their election pledges. Additionally, we analyze potential moderating effects of evaluations of election pledges in general and media trust. References: Hillen, S. & Steiner, N. D. (2020): The Consequences of Supply Gaps in Two-Dimensional Policy Spaces for Voter Turnout and Political Support: The Case of Economically Left-Wing and Culturally Right-Wing Citizens in Western Europe, European Journal of Political Research, 59, 331-353. Mansbridge, J. (2003). Rethinking Representation. American Political Science Review, 97, 515-528. Schnepf, J., Bytzek, E., Steffens, M.C. & Rudert, S.C. (forthcoming). Parteienpolarisierung gleich Rändermobilisierung? Eine experimentelle Studie zur Wirkung von Parteien-polarisierung auf die Wahlbeteiligungsabsicht. Accepted for publication in Politische Psychologie.