Aarhus Universitets segl

New postdoc project on group-based political messages, gender, and ethnic minorities

The Danish Council for Independent Research has funded a postdoctoral project investigating the question “Do Group Politics Only Matter for Men?,” to be carried out by Emily Cochran Bech at the department of Political Science and Government.

Emily Cochran Bech

The project examines how individuals who are members of specific social groups respond when politicians mention their groups and emphasize positive or negative contributions made by them. So far, researchers have always been of the opinion that group-based political messages influence group members more or less in the same way. Drawing on recent research findings and psychological literature, this project will challenge this by investigating whether there is a difference in how such political messages about groups, positive and negative, have different effects on men and women’s confidence in political institutions—itself vital to democratic sustainability. In the project, Emily Cochran Bech will use survey and lab experiments among two different groups in Denmark, ethnic minorities and schoolteachers, to investigate whether group-based political messages affect such political trust differently depending on gender.