Asymmetrical Mobilization: Election campaigns and unequal turnout

Abstract

Electoral turnout in Germany has not only substantially declined over the last two decades, but also increasingly grown unequal among social groups. This paper makes use of a new dataset on the local variation in parties' mobilisation efforts. Looking at the city of Frankfurt, we show that parties concentrate their election campaign on urban quarters that are better-off and where past turnout was relatively high. At the same time, parties tend to neglect poorer parts of the city with low turnout-rates. An analysis of survey data supports these findings as it shows how parties overwhelmingly get in touch with their own supporters and politically highly interested citizens during election campaigns. Looking at both aggregate and individual data, there is no indication that parties make a particular effort to mobilize previous non-voters.