Group Appeals in Electoral and Parliamentary Debates (GAEPD)

Funding: German Research Foundation (DFG) & Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Duration: 3 years (2026 – 2029)
Budget: 329.000€ (own share), 543.000€ (total)

Team

• Lena Maria Huber  — Principal Investigator (University of Mannheim)
• Hauke Licht — Principal Investigator (University of Innsbruck)
• Luis Sattelmayer  — Postdoctoral Researcher (University of Innsbruck) starting April 2026
• Larissa Henkst — PhD Candidate (University of Mannheim)
• Niels Kissel — Research Assistant (University of Mannheim)
• Leander Höretzeder — Research Assistant (University of Innsbruck) starting March 2026

Overview

Why do politicians talk about “the middle class”, “immigrants”, or “families”? Political messages often focus on social groups like these – groups that people identify with or see as important in society. Such group-focused communication can influence how people vote and how they see political parties. But we still know little about why and how parties use these appeals and what impact they have on democracy. This research project explores how political parties and members of parliament in Western Europe talk about social groups — both during election campaigns and in everyday parliamentary debates. It asks: What kinds of groups do politicians mention? How do they speak about them? And how do these group-based messages affect how people think and vote?

Research Questions

To answer these questions, the project studies speeches and texts from political parties in eight Western European countries. It focuses on two types of communication: official party platforms during election campaigns, and speeches in national parliaments. By looking at both, the project can find out whether parties change how they talk depending on the political setting.

<p”>We also look at how politicians describe groups. Some groups are easy to define — for example, “pensioners” or “farmers”. Others are described in more subtle ways, like “people who work hard” or “those left behind”. The project examines whether politicians talk about groups in a way that brings people together or sets them apart.

Methods

To carry out this analysis, the team uses new methods from the field of computer-based text analysis. These tools allow us to examine which groups are mentioned, what is said about them, and how these messages change over time and across countries. The project analyzes:

• Party manifestos from 8 European democracies (1970–2025)
• Parliamentary speeches from Germany, Sweden, and the UK (1990–2023)
• Survey experiments to assess voter responses to different types of group appeals

Significance

This project offers new insights into how politics shapes the way we think about society. It helps explain how politicians try to win support and how their words can unite or divide people. The findings will be important not only for researchers and policymakers, but also for anyone interested in the health of our democracies.