Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity
<p>What explains variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties? Demand-size explanations have focused on the size and turnout of the working class, while supply-side explanations have focused on strategic policy maneuvering by parties. However, with both approaches, unexp...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2021
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| _version_ | 1826301014283649024 |
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| author | Sonneveld, P |
| author2 | Dilling, M |
| author_facet | Dilling, M Sonneveld, P |
| author_sort | Sonneveld, P |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>What explains variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties? Demand-size explanations have focused on the size and turnout of the working class, while supply-side explanations have focused on strategic policy maneuvering by parties. However, with both approaches, unexplained variation in the class-based support for social democratic parties remained. I introduce a novel argument, which I call the “language recognition thesis”. The language used by politicians can be considered a way of symbolic representation used to appeal to voters. I test out this thesis in Great Britain, focusing specifically on whether and how language complexity in parliamentary debates influences class-based support for the social democratic Labour Party.</p>
<p>In preparing my variables, I draw on techniques from linguistics, sociology and computer science, using a linguistic formula and applying it to 1.8 million parliamentary speeches from the UK House of Commons, as well as distilling debate topics from these speeches using the machine learning technique Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). After the data preparation, I use a two-step research strategy to investigate the proposed mechanism. </p>
<p>First, using a multilevel logistic regression, I investigate the relationship and its strength, through the use of the speech transcripts from the UK Parliament, which span a period of over thirty years, as well as thirty years of survey data.</p>
<p>Second, using a survey experiment, I attempt to provide evidence in support of my proposed mechanism, by subjecting participants to UK parliamentary speeches of varying complexity on a topic closely related to social class: welfare benefits.</p>
<p>The results show that when the language use across parties becomes more complex, people are more likely to rely on their class identity to determine what party they support. Working class individuals are more likely to support social democratic parties under these conditions, while members of higher classes are less likely to support these parties under the same conditions. Furthermore, people are more likely to support politicians who use less complex language. These findings provide important insights for the literature on class voting, social democratic party politics and political communications.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:25:56Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:e08c7b90-1468-4f7d-8b18-06a5141a4305 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:25:56Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:e08c7b90-1468-4f7d-8b18-06a5141a43052022-03-27T09:48:04ZSpeaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexityThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccuuid:e08c7b90-1468-4f7d-8b18-06a5141a4305Working classCommunicationsPolitical sciencePolitical partiesEnglishHyrax Deposit2021Sonneveld, PDilling, M<p>What explains variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties? Demand-size explanations have focused on the size and turnout of the working class, while supply-side explanations have focused on strategic policy maneuvering by parties. However, with both approaches, unexplained variation in the class-based support for social democratic parties remained. I introduce a novel argument, which I call the “language recognition thesis”. The language used by politicians can be considered a way of symbolic representation used to appeal to voters. I test out this thesis in Great Britain, focusing specifically on whether and how language complexity in parliamentary debates influences class-based support for the social democratic Labour Party.</p> <p>In preparing my variables, I draw on techniques from linguistics, sociology and computer science, using a linguistic formula and applying it to 1.8 million parliamentary speeches from the UK House of Commons, as well as distilling debate topics from these speeches using the machine learning technique Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). After the data preparation, I use a two-step research strategy to investigate the proposed mechanism. </p> <p>First, using a multilevel logistic regression, I investigate the relationship and its strength, through the use of the speech transcripts from the UK Parliament, which span a period of over thirty years, as well as thirty years of survey data.</p> <p>Second, using a survey experiment, I attempt to provide evidence in support of my proposed mechanism, by subjecting participants to UK parliamentary speeches of varying complexity on a topic closely related to social class: welfare benefits.</p> <p>The results show that when the language use across parties becomes more complex, people are more likely to rely on their class identity to determine what party they support. Working class individuals are more likely to support social democratic parties under these conditions, while members of higher classes are less likely to support these parties under the same conditions. Furthermore, people are more likely to support politicians who use less complex language. These findings provide important insights for the literature on class voting, social democratic party politics and political communications.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Working class Communications Political science Political parties Sonneveld, P Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title | Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title_full | Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title_fullStr | Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title_full_unstemmed | Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title_short | Speaking to voters: explaining variations in the class-based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| title_sort | speaking to voters explaining variations in the class based support for social democratic parties through language complexity |
| topic | Working class Communications Political science Political parties |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sonneveldp speakingtovotersexplainingvariationsintheclassbasedsupportforsocialdemocraticpartiesthroughlanguagecomplexity |