In my dissertation “The Role of Social Groups in Political Communication and Public Opinion”, I examine how political parties use social group appeals and how they affect voters. Specifically, I investigate how parties use social group appeals as a distinct communication strategy, as well as in combination with issue emphasis. Empirically, I focus on the case of Austria using a quantitative content analysis of party manifestos in the period between 1990 and 2019. Based on two original survey experiments, I also investigate voters’ responses to group appeals and how they influence the evaluation of policy proposals. The first part of my dissertation “Beyond policy: The Use of Social Group appeals in Party Communication” was published in Political Communication. 

As part of my work as a team member of the Austrian National Election Study, I have contributed to 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 the European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and West European Politics.