Theories from psychology suggest that voters' perceptions of political positions depend on their non-policy related attitudes towards the candidates. A voter who likes (dislikes) a candidate will perceive the candidate's position as closer to (further from) his own than it really is. This is called projection. If voters' perceptions are not counterfactual and voting is based on perceived policy positions then projection gives a generally liked candidate an incentive to be ambiguous. In this paper we construct and analyze a formal model to investigate under which conditions this incentive survives in the strategic setting of electoral competition, even if voters dislike ambiguity per se.
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Paper provided by University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics in its series Discussion Papers with number
07-12.
Length: 22 pages Date of creation: Jul 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:0712
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information
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