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The attractiveness of ambiguous political campaigning

The American Political Science Review, a flagship journal in political science, has published the paper “Ambiguous platforms and correlated preferences: Experimental Evidence” by Alexander K. Wagner (PLUS) and colleagues Juha Tolvanen (U Vienna) and James Tremewan (HSE).

The reasons behind the attractiveness of ambiguous, or even contradictory, messages in political campaigning, as evidenced for example on social media, has been a long-standing puzzle in the literature. The article shows, using a game-theoretic model of electoral competition, that noncentrist candidates have strong incentives to choose vague policy announcements in a polarized society when there is uncertainty about the policy preferences in the electorate. The theoretical and experimental findings explain equilibrium campaigning of noncentrist candidates and voting behavior. The underlying mechanism for the attractiveness of ambiguous campaigning is shown to be closely linked to the perceived similarity of preferences in the electorate. Read the open-access article, published in the May 2022 issue of the APSR,  here.

American Political Science Review, May 2022 issue

Alexander K. Wagner, PhD

Paris Lodron University of Salzburg | Department of Economics

Mönchsberg 2A | A-5020 Salzburg

Email to Alexander K. Wagner, PhD

Photo: © https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review