Unequal Promises: Target Population Power and Pledge Fulfilment

Electoral research highlights the growing significance of group targeting as a new dimension to party competition beyond policy positions and issue salience. Building on this research and broader observations of unequal representation, we investigate whether parties fulfill promises made to marginalized groups as consistently as those made to more powerful groups. We hypothesize a systematic imbalance: promises to powerful groups are more likely to be implemented, while those made to marginalized groups are disproportionately broken. Additionally, we expect left-leaning parties to be more responsive to marginalized groups than right-leaning parties. We test these hypotheses based on an original dataset covering electoral pledges made by French and German executives from the mid-1990s to the present. We categorize pledges by target populations —those directly affected by the promised policies’ design—and assess the extent of their fulfillment. Our findings provide new critical insights into the dynamics of unequal representation. While marginalized groups receive substantial amounts of electoral promises, these promises are significantly less likely to be fulfilled than those made to powerful groups. The observation of similar patterns of unequal pledge fulfillment across two political systems with contrasted institutions and political dynamics suggests that similar dynamics are at play across other liberal democracies. This study points to the need to examine both electoral commitments and their real-world outcomes to understand where and how inequality manifests in representative democracies. It contributes to the broader debate on accountability, group-based representation, and the limitations of electoral competition as a vector of social equity.