Seminar series Rural sympathy rather than in- and out-group dynamics How voters respond to place-based appeals Add to calendar 2025-06-05 17:00 2025-06-05 18:30 Europe/Rome Rural sympathy rather than in- and out-group dynamics Seminar Room 3 Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Jun 05 2025 17:00 - 18:30 CEST Seminar Room 3, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the context of the Comparative Politics Seminar Series, this event features a presentation by Ruth Dassonneville (KU Leuven). Politics in Western democracies appears to be increasingly structured by a rural-urban divide, resulting from the effects that place-based identities and resentment have on voting behaviour. This geographical divide can be exploited by political parties by means of place-based appeals. Social identity theory leads to the expectation that such appeals polarise individuals based on their position on the rural-urban divide, with in-groups responding positively and out-groups reacting negatively to parties that appeal to voters based on place. The empirical evidence for this theory, however, is limited. This paper tests this theory using a pre-registered and well-powered survey experiment in which we randomly exposed individuals living in cities, suburbs, and rural areas in France to appeals to these three types of places. The results indicate that social identity theory only partially drives reactions to place-based appeals, with all place-based groups responding positively to appeals to people living in rural areas. We also show that the limited presence of in- and out-group dynamics in response to place-based appeals is due to the strong impact of deservingness perceptions, whereby out-groups in particular respond positively to appeals to place-based groups that are perceived as deserving of more political attention.