The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for a duration of three years and led by myself and Hauke Licht from the University of Innsbruck. It explores why, when, and how political actors appeal to social groups, and how these appeals influence political competition, voter behavior, and representation in Western European democracies. The research objectives of this project are to (1) conceptualize the types and dimensions of group appeals and explain their prevalence and functions for party competition in the electoral and parliamentary context, (2) investigate individual-level determinants of group-based rhetoric used by members of parliament in their legislative speeches, and (3) examine the effects group appeals on voters.
As a member of the supply side team of the Austrian National Election Study, I was responsible for data collection, developing codebooks, training coders, data preparation, and publication of data sets. As part of the project I organized the data collection on party communication in electoral manifestos, press releases, social media and newspaper ads for the 2019 national election. I have also worked on several publications focusing on elections and party competition. These include work on legislator communication of the parliamentary agenda, differences in issue strategies across the party hierarchy, and parties’ reactions to a changing issue agenda. This research has been published in highly-ranked journals, such as the European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and West European Politics.