Political party offers of representation for minority voters: advertising in Chinese-language newspapers in New Zealand

Abstract

For reasons of both electoral competitiveness and democratic legitimacy, political parties in diverse democracies increasingly compete for the votes of immigrant and ethnic minority voters. A considerable literature has examined the effects of electoral advertising on the partisanship and turnout of targeted groups. Little attention has been given, however, to the nature of the representational offers contained in advertising that targets ethnic minorities. Do party advertisements offer descriptive representation, by featuring ethnic candidates? Do they offer geographic representation, by focusing on districts where ethnic minorities live? Do they offer to represent ethnic minorities’ specific interests or experiences? Where ethnic minorities are internally diverse, what efforts do parties make to address such diversity in their advertising? How parties answer these questions affects the scope and inclusivity of the representational offers extended to ethnic minority voters, with consequences for their political inclusion and representation. We examine how these questions have been answered in New Zealand, a country characterised by high rates of inward migration and the enfranchisement of resident non-citizens. Using data from a novel study of New Zealand political parties’ election advertisements targeting Chinese voters, we assess the quantity and character of representational offers made to this internally diverse minority group. Our findings suggest that, even as the main political parties are increasingly making specific representational offers to Chinese New Zealanders, these offers vary across the political spectrum in their quantity, scope and inclusiveness.