This relationship is robust to various specifications and is driven by group appeals to especially religious, class and age groups. Further, we find that while purely ‘symbolic’ appeals matter, ‘substantive’ appeals that mention policy are more effective by an order of magnitude.

We find that voters appear highly attuned to how party elites talk about different social groups. Adding a single net positive appeal to a given group on a daily basis over the course of 3 months improves a perceived group-party linkage by ~6 points on average.

To test this, we develop a novel automated approach that uses language models to measure group appeals observationally. Using UK data, we connect citizens’ perceived group linkages in surveys to party elites’ group appeals in parliamentary speech spanning three decades.

In a new working paper, @fghjorth.bsky.social and I show that party elites have significant power to shape group linkages through their rhetoric, suggesting that such linkages are more dynamic and elite-driven than suggested by predominant structural accounts. 🧵

Just concluded a 3-day workshop with the excellent
@phuenermund.bsky.social on causal data science with DAGs.

Even more bullish on this exciting research program now than I was before! And cannot recommend Paul’s workshops highly enough.