Unequal mandate responsiveness? How electoral promises and their realizations target groups in France and Germany – UNEQUALMAND

We draw on a mixed-method research design combining hypothesis-testing with more inductive approaches that are relevant to an emerging research agenda. For studying how political actors target groups, we gather macro-level quantitative data on promises and their realization, which we use, first, to generate a typology on groups and their characteristics, and then to test our hypotheses. The data on pledges is used to design surveys and vignette experiments on voters’ reactions to group-targeting in pledge making and pledge fulfillment. Qualitative process-tracing of cases of (non-)fulfilled pledges targeted at specific groups shed light on the mechanisms linking groups, pledges and fulfillment, and allow for further hypotheses to be inductively generated.
The country selection represents a diverse cases design: France and Germany are comparable in many respects, but their institutions and party systems also differ crucially. This allows maximization of the external validity of the findings, and provides variance for the explorative, inductive part of the project.
By tracing (in)equal representation at different stages of the policymaking process (pledge making and realization),

Our data collection provides a clearer picture of the democratic mandate of executives in France and Germany. It reveals, for example, the increase in the number of electoral promises over time, the way in which these promises cover all sectors of public action and are translated, in a majority of cases, into effective public policies. These results are important because they contradict common prejudices about promises that «only commit those who listen to them«.
Our research also makes it possible to identify the groups to which the parties that have been in power in both countries over the last 25 years have made promises. While certain groups (businesses, families, the elderly, wage earners, the poor) attract a significant number of promises, the list of targets is relatively diverse but similar in both countries. It includes groups commonly considered to be under- or poorly-represented in public policy choices (e.g. women, young people or certain minorities).
On the German side, our data also provides a better understanding of what happens when coalitions are formed. Our first article analyses which promises are more likely to be included in the coalition contract. We show that the larger parties manage to place a higher proportion of their promises, but also that the selection follows a logic of lowest common denominator. Coalitions are formed around a base of promises on which the associated parties can converge.
The remainder of the project will deliver further results relating to the characteristics that enable social groups to obtain promises and their fulfilment, as well as the consequences of representation by mandate for the way in which citizens perceive political parties, governments and the process of representation.

UNEQUALMAND makes an important contribution not only to the literature on unequal responsiveness, but also to previous research on public policy, party competition and electoral pledges. More broadly, this project has major potential implications for the understanding of (un)equal representation in representative democracy – from the perspective of political actors and voters.

1. Deiss-Helbig Elisa, Guinaudeau Isabelle (2023) From Electoral Pledges to Coalition Agreements: Coalition bargaining and policy payoffs in Germany (2002-2021), communication à la European Political Science Association.

Political equality is a core requirement and a key principle of democracy. However, research casts serious doubt on the realization of this ideal and points to “unequal responsiveness”. This project examines political (in-)equality in France and Germany through the lens of group representation, with a focus on mandates and their realization in the form of policies. We look at the supply and the demand-side of political competition. How do pledges and fulfilled policy appeal to groups with different characteristics? How and under what conditions do citizens respond to group targeting in electoral manifestos (prospective) and pledge fulfillment (retrospective)?
One main hypothesis of this project is that political actors not only disproportionately appeal to certain groups when making pledges, but also that pledge fulfillment is not constant and varies depending on the characteristics of the social groups, i.e. their mobilization resources and social images. UNEQUALMAND further investigates how group targeting affects citizens’ perceptions and assessment of pledges, with a focus on group-based heuristics, and the moderating role of the ambiguity of the pledge (broadness of the targeted group and preciseness of promised policy).
We draw on a mixed-method research design combining hypothesis-testing with more inductive approaches that are relevant to an emerging research agenda. For studying how political actors target groups, we gather macro-level quantitative data on promises and their realization, which we use, first, to generate a typology on groups and their characteristics, and then to test our hypotheses. The data on pledges is used to design surveys and vignette experiments on voters’ reactions to group-targeting in pledge making and pledge fulfillment. Qualitative process-tracing of cases of (non-)fulfilled pledges targeted at specific groups shed light on the mechanisms linking groups, pledges and fulfillment, and allow for further hypotheses to be inductively generated.
The country selection represents a diverse cases design: France and Germany are comparable in many respects, but their institutions and party systems also differ crucially. This allows maximization of the external validity of the findings, and provides variance for the explorative, inductive part of the project.
By tracing (in)equal representation at different stages of the policymaking process (pledge making and realization), UNEQUALMAND makes an important contribution not only to the literature on unequal responsiveness, but also to previous research on public policy, party competition and electoral pledges. More broadly, this project has major potential implications for the understanding of (un)equal representation in representative democracy – from the perspective of political actors and voters.