The Mobilising Effect of Class Appeals to the New and Old Working Class

The low and decreasing turnout among the working class poses important challenges to democratic representation. It has become more difficult for political parties to mobilise workers, especially due to the changing composition of the working class, with a declining number of traditional industrial workers and a growing number of service workers, often women and ethnic minorities. This paper assesses political parties' group appeals to service and production workers and their impact on turnout among these groups. We argue that how parties, particularly left-wing parties, define the working class and appeal to it has an effect on whether it is politically mobilised. We assess parties’ working-class appeals in their manifestos in the UK and Germany since the mid-20th century, using a dictionary approach and word embeddings. Additionally, we evaluate whether appeals are associated with turnout rates among these groups, using ESS survey data from 2002 onwards. Results show the very limited impact of class appeals on production and service workers, but support the notion of an indirect mobilising effect of appeals on sociocultural professionals. Our results speak to an important puzzle, namely why the salience of class politics seems to decline despite growing precarious employment. Working class appeals may not be a straightforward way to alleviate unequal political participation.