Mads Thau

• Thau, Mads (2021). The Social Divisions of Politics: How Parties’ Group-Based Appeals Influence Social Group Differences in Vote Choice. Journal of Politics. doi: 10.1086/710018. Vis sammendrag

  Social groups often differ in vote choice, but differences vary significantly between elections. Recent work argues that political parties shape group differences by the policies they propose. I posit that differences also depend on how parties use group-based appeals. This proposition is tested with a unique data set on group-based appeals, policy-based appeals, and voter preferences in Britain from 1964 to 2015. Focusing on social class as one prominent group membership, I show how class differences in vote choice respond to policy-based as well as group-based class appeals: the gap between voters from opposing classes widens or narrows depending on how much the Labour Party emphasizes “old” symbolic ties to workers and “new” ties to businesses. These effects are robust and compare to the policy effects highlighted in previous work. Overall, this implies a revised view on how political parties influence the social divisions of electoral politics.

• Robison, Joshua; Stubager, Rune; Thau, Mads & Tilley, James (2020). Does class-based campaigning work? How working class appeals attract and polarize voters. Comparative Political Studies. doi: 10.1177/0010414020957684. Vis sammendrag

  Recent elections have featured various politicians directly appealing to the working class, yet we know little about how citizens react to class appeals from candidates. We investigate this question using survey experiments conducted in the United States and Denmark. We show that symbolic class rhetoric substantially influences candidate evaluations and ultimately polarizes these evaluations across class lines. We also unpack how class appeals work and find that while they increase perceptions of representation among working class voters, they have a more limited effect on perceptions of candidates’ ideological position. Our results help explain how class affects voter decision-making and contribute to broader discussions about the role of political elites in activating social cleavages.

• Thau, Mads; Mikkelsen, Maria Falk; Hjortskov, Morten & Pedersen, Mogens Jin (2020). Question Order Bias Revisited: A Split-Ballot Experiment on Satisfaction with Public Services among Experienced and Professional Users. Public Administration. doi: 10.1111/padm.12688. Vis sammendrag

  Public decision-makers increasingly rely on satisfaction surveys to inform budget and policy decisions. Yet, our knowledge of whether, and under what conditions, this input from public service users provides valid performance information remains incomplete. Using a preregistered splitballot experiment among government grant recipients in Denmark, this article shows that the ordering of survey questions can bias satisfaction measures even for highly experienced and professional respondents. We find that asking about overall satisfaction before any specific service ratings lowers overall user satisfaction, compared to the reverse order, while the correlations between specific ratings and overall satisfaction are relatively stable. Also, the question order effect outweighs that of a large-scale embezzlement scandal, which unexpectedly hit the investigated government agency during the data collection. Our results support rising concerns that subjective performance indicators are susceptible to bias. We discuss how practitioners should approach satisfaction surveys to account for the risk of question order bias.

• Thau, Mads (2019). How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015. Political Studies. 67(1), s. 63–82. doi: 10.1177/0032321717744495.
• Thau, Mads (2018). The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004. World Political Science. 14(2), s. 169–188. doi: 10.1515/wps-2018-0011. Vis sammendrag

  In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Democratic Party in Denmark. Based on a quantitative content analysis of party programs between 1961 and 2004, I find that, at the general level, class-related appeals have been replaced by appeals targeting non-economic groups. At the specific level, the class-related appeals that remain have increasingly been targeting businesses at the expense of traditional left-wing groups such as wage earners, tenants and pensioners. These findings support a widespread hypothesis that party strategy was crucial in the decline of class politics, but also suggests that future work on class mobilization should adopt a group-centered perspective.

• Thau, Mads (2017). Demobilisering af klassepolitik i Danmark: Socialdemokratiets gruppebaserede appeller 1961-2004 . Politica - Tidsskrift for politisk videnskab. 49(2), s. 158–178. Vis sammendrag

  I Danmark og andre vesteuropæiske lande stemmer arbejderklassen ikke på socialdemokratiske partier i samme omfang som tidligere. Men hvilken rolle har partierne selv spillet i klassepolitikkens demobilisering? Med udgangspunkt i teori om politisk holdningsdannelse afviger artiklen fra litteraturens fokus på policy positioner og undersøger i stedet Socialdemokratiets gruppebaserede appeller. En kvantitativ indholdsanalyse af arbejdsprogrammer og principprogrammer mellem 1961 og 2004 viser, at klassebaserede appeller generelt er blevet erstattet af appeller rettet mod ikke-økonomiske grupper. Hvad angår specifikke grupper, retter appellerne sig i stigende grad mod virksomheder på bekostning af traditionelle kernevælgere som lønmodtagere, lejere og pensionister. Det understøtter en udbredt påstand om, at partistrategi er afgørende i klassepolitikkens udvikling, men antyder også at forskningen fremadrettet bør anlægge gruppeperspektiv.

• Tatham, Michael Robert & Thau, Mads (2014). The more the merrier: accounting for sub-state paradiplomats in Brussels. European Union Politics. 15(2), s. 255–276. doi: 10.1177/1465116513512539.

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• Jensen, Jonatan Kjældgaard; Thau, Mads & Mikkelsen, Maria Falk (2021). Tilfredshedsundersøgelse blandt Socialstyrelsens tilskudsmodtagere. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Mortensen, Niels Peter; Espersen, Helle Hygum & Thau, Mads (2020). Kvalitet i undervisningen: Caseundersøgelse af kvalitet i undervisningen, godt arbejdsmiljø og professionel kapital på ungdomsskoler og sprogcentre. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Thau, Mads & Jensen, Jonatan Kjældgaard (2020). Kommunernes regnskaber og budgetter 2019/2020: Regnskabsoverskud og forbedret egenkapital. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Dalsgaard, Camilla T.; Thau, Mads & Kjærgaard, Marie (2020). Kommunernes brug af demografimodeller på ældreområdet: Kortlægning af brugen af demografimodeller i kommunernes budgetlægning på ældreområdet, budget 2020. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Thau, Mads & Houlberg, Kurt (2020). Økonomiske effekter af konkurrenceudsættelse på det kommunale administrationsområde. VIVE - Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Velfærd.
• Tue Pedersen, Rasmus & Thau, Mads (2019). Udvalgsstyret i danske kommuner : demokratisk ansvarsplacering, politisk lederskab og professionalisme i udvalgsstyret og alternative styreformer. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Thau, Mads (2019). Kommunernes regnskaber og budgetter 2018/2019: Overskuddet fortsætter men er mindre end tidligere. Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Velfærd.
• Iversen, Katrine; Thau, Mads & Kloppenborg, Hans Skov (2019). Kommunernes perspektiver på centrale udfordringer på børne- og ungeområdet: Kortlægning af området for udsatte børn og unge samt børn og unge med handicap. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Thau, Mads (2018). The use and consequences of group-based appeals. Politica. Vis sammendrag

  A mainstay of representative democracies is that political parties appeal for votes in competition over office. In this dissertation, I advance a new theory of party electoral strategy, which takes its point of departure in the longstanding idea that voters are group-oriented. I argue that since voters evaluate parties based on which groups they are thought to represent, vote-seeking parties use group-based appeals to change or sustain their group images so that the public sees what they want. This contrasts with the dominant perspective in the literature, which builds on the idea that voters are policy-motivated, and argues that parties use policy-based appeals to adjust policy images in ways that fit what the electorate wants. I use unique data from a content analysis of British election manifestos from 1964 to 2015 to show that group-based appeals are increasingly used, that they are used in accordance with electoral incentives, and that they are not proxies for other party strategic variables like policy positions and issue emphasis. I also show that group-based appeals can help parties gain votes, and that they can shape the social basis of electoral choice. In both cases they do so independently of the policy-based appeals that previous work has focused on. We seem to be dealing with a distinct way that parties appeal to voters. One that matters to party electoral success and individual vote choice on its own. The findings have major implications for our understanding of democratic politics and raises a number of questions that future research should address. Regardless of the answers to these questions, however, this dissertation shows that group-based appeals represent one way that political parties appeal for votes that is too substantial to ignore. The dissertation consists of this summary report and three self-contained articles.

• Thau, Mads & Panduro, Bo (2018). Kommunernes regnskaber og budgetter 2017/2018: Gennemsnitskommunens overskud fortsætter. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Jakobsen, Søren Teglgaard; Graff, Lea; Lemvigh, Kasper & Thau, Mads (2018). Organisering af plejehjemspladser i Faaborg-Midtfyn Kommune: To analyser af: rehabiliteringscenter Bakkegården samt plejetyngden og det fremtidige normeringsbehov på Faaborg-Midtfyn Kommunes plejhjem. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
• Iversen, Katrine; Jensen, Didde Cramer; Ruge, Mathias & Thau, Mads (2018). Kommunernes perspektiver på centrale udfordringer på voksensocialområdet. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.

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• Steen-Johnsen, Kari; Thau, Mads & Vaccari, Cristian (2022). The Road to Citizenship is through Dialogue: How Discussing Politics Reinforces Political Interest.
• Tue Pedersen, Rasmus & Thau, Mads (2021). Det politiske arbejde i de stående udvalg. I Kjær, Ulrik & Andersen, Lotte Bøgh (Red.), Kommunalpolitisk lederskab : tæt på borgerne i de lokale fællesskaber. Hans Reitzels Forlag.
• Pedersen, Rasmus A & Thau, Mads (2019). Vive: Udskældt kommunalt udvalgsstyre fungerer faktisk fint. Altinget.
• Thau, Mads (2019). Hvad blev der af klassepolitikken i Danmark? I Grøn, Caroline Howard (Red.), Politologisk Årbog. DJØF Forlag. s. 86–89.
• Tatham, Michael Robert & Thau, Mads (2012). The more the merrier: accounting for sub-state paradiplomats in Brussels.

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