Party Ambiguity and Voter Uncertainty: A Re-Assessment

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Abstract

Empirical research on the electoral fallout of party ambiguity and voter uncertainty has often been ambiguous and uncertain itself. This contribution applies an innovative survey experiment to explore voter reactions to both risk and uncertainty. In the first step, we present a sample of N=1,500 German voters with a election survey that focuses on key spatial voting items. The standard questionnaire is augmented by additional items that capture voter attitudes towards risk and voter uncertainty about their personal ideal points and the locations of the key parties competing.

In the second step, we present the interviewees with a range of stylized scenarios that involve vote choice among precise, risky, and uncertain party platforms. Both our survey material and our experimental evidence demonstrate that voters do not tend to be systematically repelled by ambiguous platforms so that the strategy of "promising everything to everyone" may very likely be a winning formula. However, we also show that voter uncertainty, when the policies a party would enact if it were elected are rendered almost unpredictable, does systematically depress voter utility.

The electoral consquences of risk and uncertainty are accounted for both within the spatial model, but we also show that non-spatial considerations do reduce the chances of actors which are considered uncertain and less trustworthy. Eventually, we also show the analytical importance of the status quo: The application of basic considerations derived by prospect theory underscore that voters are risk-averse in the domain of gains, but risk-acceptant in the domain of losses.

Author

• Guido Tiemann, Institute for Advanced Studies