SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

Who’s on Target: Party Appeals, Group Affinity and Partisan

Attachments
Alvaro J. Pereira Filho

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SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

What role do a party’s appeals play in generating candidate support? My postdoctoral

project, “Who’s on Target: Party Appeals, Group Affinity, and Partisan Attachments,” is an
extended argument about why appeals to social groups change public perceptions about parties
and their voters, in turn influencing electoral performance (i.e., candidate evaluations and vote
choice). Drawing insights from literature on Comparative Politics, Political Behaviour, and
Political Psychology, my project advances a framework that aims to fill two important gaps. First,
since electoral payoffs of group appeals are deemed unclear due to mixed findings in scholarly
works, why political parties insist on appealing to social groups is a puzzle that my project seeks
to solve. Second, my project’s scope includes the effect of party appeals on voter perceptions,
which have been largely overlooked. This project will shift lenses from electoral payoffs and
generate important knowledge about the how party activities influence voter perceptions as well
as vote choice. I will publish the findings in four academic articles and produce data sets for
public use.
Political parties structure democratic competition by connecting voters to issues and
social groups (Rosenblum 2010; Leeper & Slothuus 2014). Party targeting, which entails
appealing to a group of voters using tailored messages (Hersh & Schaffner 2013; Holman,
Schneider, & Pondel 2015), often emphasizes policy stances and group ties, thereby rendering
one’s image of a party. With a few exceptions (see Albertson 2011), the vast majority of studies
have focused on estimating electoral payoffs to determine whether party appeals are effective
(e.g., Nteta & Schaffner 2013; Ostfeld 2019). Yet, scholars find that electoral payoffs of party
appeals are unclear (see Druckman 2022, p.73). Hersh and Schaffner (2013), on one hand, find
that appeals fail to enhance candidate support, however, generating backfire in the broad
electorate. On the other hand, Robison et al. (2021) demonstrate that group-based appeals
persuade working class voters to support the party’s candidate. Further, they show that appeals
have polarized evaluations across social class lines. These results, therefore, raise questions about
why parties persist in such strategy even though findings are widely mixed about its electoral
effectiveness.
My project seeks to empirically test the mechanisms that drive the effectiveness of
party appeals. Two approaches predict how party appeals enhance support for candidates (Hersh
& Schaffner 2013). The informational approach argues that party appeals inform voters about
policy stances and group alliances to one’s party (e.g., Nicholson 2012; Kane, Mason, & Wronski
2021). The strategic approach posits that appeals frame partisan attachments by policy
agreement or party-group ties (e.g., Iyengar & Valentino 2000; Hillygus & Shields 2008; Lavine,
Johnston, & Steenbergen 2012). These two approaches have distinctive causal pathways: for the
informational approach, candidate support reflects ideological congruence or affinity for a social
group, unlike the strategic approach, where candidate support reproduces in-party or out-party
preferences. Hence, group-based appeals can activate two integral mechanisms: group affinity
and partisan attachments. Normatively, these mechanisms generate distinctive consequences for
democratic representation and polarization (see Mason & Wronski 2018). Nevertheless, while
social groups and policy stances have been historically associated with parties, party attachments
also provide information about social group liaisons and ideological congruence (Lipset &
Rokkan 1967; Green, Palmquist, & Schickler 2002; Lupu 2016; Dias & Lelkes 2022). Since
group affinity and partisan attachment inform each other, previous studies cannot distinguish
which of these factors leverage electoral payoff via party appeals.

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SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

Three empirical challenges leads to this undetectable distinction between group

affinity and partisan attachment, which my postdoctoral project addresses directly. First, while
observational studies inevitably result problems to infer causality, due to response bias and/or
endogeneity (Arceneaux 2010), experiments are not a panacea. Survey experiments, which
combine strengths from experimental and observational studies, can inadvertently manipulate
factors beyond those of interest (e.g., Dafoe, Zhang, & Caughey 2018). In my project, I will
carefully design experimental manipulations in surveys that enable me to differentiate whether
the effects on candidate support are operating through group affinity or partisan attachment.
Analytical leverage is gained by decomposing the total effect into direct effects that stem from
these two mechanisms.
Second, to assess the total effectiveness of party appeals, my project will shift lenses
to the side consequences for perceptions that group appeals often render. Previous models have
concentrated on electoral benefits and pitfalls (e.g., Hersh & Schaffner 2013); however,
perceptions of party appeals, group affinity, and party image have been overlooked. To
empirically evaluate the causal claims outlined above, I will employ multi-item measurements of
perceptions, attitudes, and affinities (e.g., Ansolabehere, Rodden, & Snyder Jr. 2008), while
being cognizant of recent advancements in techniques that trace multiple causal pathways (Zhou
& Yamamoto 2023). Evaluating distinct pathways will enable a more rigorous evaluation of my
argument. In addition, I will consider a few factors that may intensify, or attenuate, how appeals
impact voters’ perceptions including interest in and attention to politics (Conserve 2000;
Krupnikov & Ryan 2022), knowledge about party-group alliances and policy stances (e.g., Zaller
1992; Delli Carpini & Keeter 1996), and voter’s social identities (e.g., Huddy, Mason, & Aarøe
2015; Federico & Ekstrom 2018).
Third, scholars have traditionally debated the best strategy for parties to approach
voters’ preferences and raise electoral benefits. In their article, Hersh and Schaffner (2013)
conclude that broad appeals (i.e., appeals to middle class voters or ‘constituents’) do not generate
backfire from voters relative to targeted messages. Experiments on party appeals often design the
control condition based on broad appeals to compare them with tailored messages to specific
group and estimate their effects. While a control group should be the neutral counterfactual
condition, evidence shows that broad appeals can instead convince voters about party moderation
and increase candidate support (Somer-Topcu 2015). Therefore, comparing these broad appeals
with targeted messages can underestimate the effectiveness of party appeals. My project will
evaluate this longstanding question of whether broad appeals affect voters’ perceptions and when
scholars should use these kind of appeal as a counterfactual condition.
Using observational and experimental data, my postdoctoral project will explore the
effectiveness of party appeals in four articles. In the first, I will investigate: “What drives voters’
perceptions about party appeals?” Previous studies have empirically described, using multiple
sources, that perceptions of appeals to the working class have declined and that other social
groups are more frequently appealed by political parties (Evans & Tilley 2017, ch.6; Thau 2021).
Nevertheless, these studies do not empirically investigate what aspects of individual and
contextual features shape these perceptions on party appeals. I will fill this gap by examining
whether perceptions of appeals are driven by party manifestos or conditioned by individual
predispositions, like engagement, party identity and knowledge.

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SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

The second manuscript will concentrate on: “How do party appeals influence
political beliefs?” I will examine how voters use information contained in group appeals to
update attitudes and evaluations of parties and governments. Political scientists define that while
some voters update beliefs based on new information about parties and group alliances, others
will embrace a party’s position when assessing government performance, if they are part of that
group. I will test these two hypotheses measuring evaluations according to (mis)perceptions in
politics (e.g., Popkin 1991; Lau & Redlawsk 2006; Lodge & Taber 2013; Ahler & Sood 2018)
and the motivated reasoning theory (Kahan 2015; Bisgaard 2019).
The third manuscript elaborates on the following question: “Why do voters react to
broad appeals?” Two theories about party strategy predict when broad appeals maximize
electoral benefits for the party. One is the catch-all strategy (Kirchheimer 2015) and the other is
median voter strategy (Downs 1957). Empirically, scholars use broad appeals as the
counterfactual condition for party targeting (e.g., Hersh & Schaffner 2013; Robison et al. 2021),
like appeals for middle class, ‘constituents’, or ‘all voters.’ I will explore the effects of broad
appeals on voters’ perceptions in order to understand what constitutes a broad appeal and what
can be implicitly stated into those messages.
Lastly, in the final article of this project, I will answer the following question: “What
role do party’s appeals play in candidate support?” This manuscript explores mechanisms of
group-based appeals, group affinities and partisan attachment, that are not previously investigated
in scholarly works. I will trace multiple causal pathways existent in the causal claim of party
appeals and electoral payoff. By distinguishing and estimating the direct effects of the two
mechanisms, I will document which one is more prominent under conditions of group- versus
policy-based appeals and group appeals to in- and out-group voters. Finally, I will discuss the
consequences of these mechanisms conditioned by political engagement, knowledge and social
identities.
For this project, I will primarily consider social groups and issues in Canada and the
United Kingdom. I will use the practical realities of being in Canada in dialogue with the
longstanding tradition of the class appeal research in the UK. In the experiments, I will include
appeals to ‘old’ cleavages, like social class (e.g., Evans & Tilley 2017; Thau 2021) and religion
(Wilkins-Laflamme 2016; Gidengil 2022), and ‘new’ cleavages, like immigrants (Banting &
Soroka 2020) and gender (Holman, Schneider, & Pondel 2015). In terms of party appeals,
scholars have argued that demographic features are more frequently appealed to than economic
status; thereby, demographic features are becoming more electorally relevant (Thau 2019; though
see Dassonneville 2022, ch.3). These ‘old’ and ‘new’ cleavages will help to establish
comparability and generalizability in the observational and experimental studies, which will
contribute to scholarship across several fields.
This postdoctoral project requires three types of data collection to be accomplished.
First, existing data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (MARPOR) and other initiatives,
like Thau (2019), include a record of appeals by parties in different countries and elections. For
the purpose of this project, I will expand on the existing data as necessary to cover both Canada
and UK until the most recent elections. In my own research with Dr. Amanda Friesen (Western
University), Dr. Melissa Baker (University of Texas at El Paso), and Thomas Galipeau
(University of Toronto), I have collected and analyzed data from texts using dictionaries and,
with my computational skills, estimated the use of emotional language in “most important issue”

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SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

survey responses. My goal is to contribute original data on group-based appeals in these two
political contexts and make it available for public use.
Second, I will take advantage of existing data on elections in both the Canadian
Election Study (CES) and the British Election Study (BES). Both election studies contain
information about candidate support, group affinity, partisan attachment, and perceptions of party
appeals. In the BES, specifically, these measures covers 6 years in a panel study. In the first
chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation, which I presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the American
Political Science Association (APSA) and the 2023 meeting of the International Society of
Political Psychology (ISPP), I investigate the relationship between perceptions of party appeals
and partisan attachment using this panel data. Thus, using these election studies, I will expand the
argument of my dissertation adding measures for group affinity, political engagement,
knowledge, and identification for all year and voters.
Third, in the two survey experiments needed for the third chapter of my dissertation,
funded by a Samuel Clark Research Grant and Western’s Department of Political Science
Research, Training, and Development Fund (RTDF), I explore why partisans develop distinctive
types of attachment to a party after appeals. Although the focus of my dissertation is exclusively
on partisan voters, the surveys also collect information about non-partisans’ party evaluations and
perceptions of party images and party-group affinities, and measures of political engagement,
government performance and knowledge. Finally, I also measure candidate evaluations, vote
intentions, and certainty about vote choice, which are central measures for the extended argument
of this project.
I will execute my research under the supervision of Dr. Ruth Dassonneville in the
Département de Science Politique at Université de Montréal. Dr. Dassonneville’s expertise in
Electoral Behaviour, Group Alignments and Partisanship make her exceptionally well-suited as a
host supervisor for this postdoctoral project. Our interests in party-group alignment and vote
choice overlap in an intrinsic way that her supervision is ideal for this project. Furthermore,
Université de Montréal is an optimal department to host my research due to its institutional
capacity and academic community. In combination with the neighboring McGill University and
Université du Québec à Montréal, the universities support a unique network of faculty and
graduate students. Research programs under the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship
(CSDC) also align with my research goals about citizen’s perceptions and engagement in politics,
which are at the heart of this postdoctoral project.
My previous research, training, and teaching make me ideally suited to complete this
project. My dissertation, “Party Targeting Theory of Partisan Reasoning,” builds upon existing
literature on partisanship, propose a top-down framework for group alignment and types of
partisan attachments in democracies. Beyond a strict argument on individual differences, I argue
that political parties are protagonists that influence which type of partisanship their followers
have. Supplementing my dissertation work, these I have focused on writing papers that explain
the consequences on behaviour and perceptions of elite-mass relationships in different countries.
For instance, I have developed research in collaboration with scholars using comparative data
about pain treatments in Canada and the US (Zajacova et al. forthcoming) and partisan
motivations in Brazil (Pereira Filho & Vidigal forthcoming). In several years, I have worked as a
Teaching Assistant for courses in methods for the graduate program (2020, 2021, 2022, and
2023), where I was responsible for monitoring the computational part of the course. I have also

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SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship – Program of Work

had the opportunity twice to instruct undergraduate students in the summer (2022 and 2023) in
Research Design in Political Science (POL2325), reflecting my work ethic and skills.
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