Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Group-based identities are an important basis of political competition. Politicians consciously appeal to specific social groups, and these group-based appeals often improve the evaluation of parties and candidates. Studying place-based appeals, we advance the understanding of this strategy by distinguishing between dominant and subordinate social groups. Using two survey experiments in Germany and England, we show that group appeals improve candidate evaluation among subordinate (rural) voters. By contrast, appeals to the dominant (urban) group trigger a negative reaction. While urban citizens’ weaker local identities and lower place-based resentment partly explain this asymmetry, they mainly dislike group-based appeals because of their antagonistic nature. If the same policies are framed as benefiting urban and rural dwellers alike, candidate evaluation improves. Thus, people on the dominant side of a group divide reject a framing of politics as antagonistically structured by this divide, even if they identify with the dominant group.
DOI: 10.5167/uzh-266701
Authors: Haffert, Lukas, Palmtag, Tabea, Schraff, Dominik
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6910868672
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