Abstract
We develop and validate a novel experimental design that builds a bridge between experimental research on the theory of spatial voting and the literature on measuring policy positions from text. Our design utilizes established text-scaling techniques and their corresponding coding schemes to communicate candidates’ numerical policy positions via verbal policy statements. This design allows researchers to investigate the relationship between candidates’ policy stances and voter choice in a purely text-based context. We validate our approach with an online survey experiment. Our results generalize previous findings in the literature and show that proximity considerations are empirically prevalent in purely text-based issue framing scenarios. The design we develop is broad and portable, and we discuss how it adds to current experimental designs, as well as suggest several implications and possible routes for future research.
Highlights
Recent developments in experimental research on the theory of spatial voting have deepened our understanding of how candidates’ policy positions translate into voting behavior (Claassen 2007, 2009; Tomz and van Houweling 2008, 2009)
We build a bridge between experimental research on spatial voting and the literature on measuring policy positions to increase our confidence in the conclusions drawn from the former
We demonstrate the feasibility and fruitfulness of this approach via an internet survey experiment
Summary
Recent developments in experimental research on the theory of spatial voting have deepened our understanding of how candidates’ policy positions translate into voting behavior (Claassen 2007, 2009; Tomz and van Houweling 2008, 2009). Our design mimics the status quo of experimental research on spatial voting with one important exception: candidates are represented by text statements that follow recommendations laid out in the existing literature on how to scale policy positions from text (Benoit et al 2012; Lowe et al 2011). These voters cast votes that minimize the distance between their own issue stance and the text-based, theoretically calculated candidate position on a left-right economic policy dimension.
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