Abstract
AbstractRecent research on electoral behavior has suggested that policy-informed vote choices are frequently obstructed by uncertainty about party positions. Given the significance of clear and distinct party platforms for meaningful representation, several studies have investigated the conditions under which parties are perceived as ambiguous. Yet previous studies have often relied on measures of perceived positional ambiguity that are fairly remote from the concept, casting doubt on their substantive conclusions. This article introduces a statistical model to estimate a comprehensive measure of perceived ambiguity that incorporates the two principal factors: non-positions and positional inconsistency. The two-faces model employs issue perceptions in an item response framework to explicitly parametrize the perceived ambiguity of party positions. The model is applied to data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey and subsequently associated with party characteristics that drive perceptions of party ambiguity. The results suggest that (a) there are notable differences between the proposed and competing measures, highlighting the need to be mindful of the intricacies of political information processing in research on perceptions of ambiguity and (b) involuntary ambiguity might be an underexplored explanation for unclear party perceptions.
Highlights
Elections are the principal mechanism in modern democracies for ensuring that governmental behavior reflects public preferences
While the recent emphasis on ambiguous party profiles reflects a valid concern in spatial models of politics, empirical research on the perceptual aspect of ambiguous position taking has often employed measures of positional ambiguity that are fairly remote from the concept
Party positions are frequently subject to substantial degrees of ambiguity
Summary
Elections are the principal mechanism in modern democracies for ensuring that governmental behavior reflects public preferences. The ideal of effective representation requires that citizens can choose between parties with clear and distinct policy profiles. This allows voters to select the competitor who best approximates their preferences. The standards of democratic theory and the responsible party model in particular are frequently violated: when party positions are perceived as vague, citizens are unable to evaluate the policies that parties might enact after the election, which risks misrepresenting citizens’ interests. This article argues that a comprehensive measure of perceptual ambiguity should explicitly incorporate the two principal factors driving perceptual ambiguity – non-positions and positional inconsistency This can be accomplished by inferring ambiguity perceptions from party placements on multiple issues. A comparison with previous ambiguity measures demonstrates notable differences between direct survey questions and the proposed measure, highlighting the need to be mindful of the intricacies of political information processing in research on perceptions of ambiguity
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