Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning

Burkhard Schipper and Hee Yeul Woo

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2019, vol. 14, issue 1, 41-88

Abstract: We study the informational effectiveness of electoral campaigns. Voters may not think about all political issues and have incomplete information with regard to political positions of candidates. Nevertheless, we show that if candidates are allowed to microtarget voters with messages then election outcomes are as if voters have full awareness of political issues and complete information about candidates' political positions. Political competition is paramount for overcoming voters' limited awareness of political issues but unnecessary for overcoming just uncertainty about candidates' political positions. Our optimistic results break down if microtargeting is not allowed or voters lack political reasoning abilities. In such cases, negative campaigning comes to rescue, at least in the majoritarian model.

Keywords: Electoral competition; campaign advertising; multidimensional policy space; targeted advertising; dog-whistle politics; negative campaigning; persuasion games; unawareness; unknown unknowns; proportional model; majoritarian model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning (2017)
Working Paper: Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00016066

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