Ethnic campaign appeals: To bond, bridge, or bypass?

• Main Author: FOX, Colm A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Indonesia; campaign appeals; ethnic diversity; religious diversity; election campaign; selection posters; campaign communications; Asian Studies; Race and Ethnicity
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3645
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In a time of rising ethno-nationalist politics and polarization, efforts to understand why some electoral candidates choose to politicize ethnicity while others do not have become increasingly urgent. One factor inhibiting our understanding in this area is the paucity of systematic measures of ethnic appeals. To help in rectifying this gap, I present an approach to identifying and measuring different types of ethnic campaign appeals – termed bonding and bridging appeals, respectively. I then apply that approach to an original dataset of over 1,500 election posters from almost 250 candidates competing in Indonesian elections. The findings indicate that candidates made ethnic bonding appeals if their ethnic group was politically viable in terms of both size and the lack of social constraints on appealing to that group. Meanwhile, candidates from nonviable groups bridged across ethnic groups or bypassed ethnicity entirely. When candidates belonged to two ethnic categories, they used the simple heuristic that bonding trumps bridging to guide their appeal strategy. These findings illustrate the importance of looking beyond ethnic demographics and also casts doubt on the broadly accepted expectation that candidates will appeal to the ethnic group that is of minimum winning size. Ultimately, the article helps us understand candidates’ communication strategies and why ethnic diversity actually results in less exclusivist ethnic politics.