Mystifying but not misleading: when does political ambiguity not confuse voters?

Author(s)
Maarten Janssen, Mariya Teteryatnikova
Abstract

The purpose of political campaigns in democracies is to provide voters with information that allows them to make "correct" choices, that is, vote for the party/candidate whose proposed policy or "position" is closest to their ideal position. In a world where political talk is often ambiguous and imprecise, it then becomes important to understand whether correct choices can still be made. In this paper we identify two elements of political culture that are key to answering this question: (i) whether or not political statements satisfy a so-called "grain of truth" assumption, and (ii) whether or not politicians make statements that are comparative, that is contain information about politicians' own positions relative to that of their adversaries. The "grain of truth" assumption means that statements, even if vague, do not completely misrepresent the true positions of the parties. We find that only when political campaigning is comparative and has a grain of truth, will voters always make choices as if they were fully informed. Therefore, the imprecision of political statements should not be a problem as long as comparative campaigning is in place.

Organisation(s)
Department of Economics
External organisation(s)
National Research University
Journal
Public Choice
Volume
172
Pages
501-524
No. of pages
24
ISSN
0048-5829
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-017-0459-3
Publication date
09-2017
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
502021 Microeconomics, 502027 Political economy
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/b91fda7b-d293-4fa6-b275-044c0f1b931c