Choice vs. Action: Candidate Ambiguity and Voter Decision Making

Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2017, vol. 12, issue 4, 479-505

Abstract: A rich literature argues that electoral incentives lead candidates to take ambiguous positions on issues. Furthermore, empirical research suggests that ambiguity does not repel — and may actually attract — voters. This work, however, equates choosing a candidate with paying the costs of voting for that candidate. We reconsider the relationship between candidate ambiguity and candidate preference moving beyond candidate choice and considering turnout as well. Integrating political science with research on consumer decision-making and psychology, we argue that many who select an ambiguous candidate do not translate that choice into an actual vote for that candidate. We test this argument using three experiments which incorporate costly voting and other electoral conditions heretofore absent from research on ambiguity.

Keywords: Campaigns; Voting behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00016051 (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00016051

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Quarterly Journal of Political Science from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().