1. Predicting Ambiguity: Costs, Benefits, and Party Competition.
- Author
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Jensen, Christian B. and Lee, Daniel J.
- Subjects
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AMBIGUITY , *POLITICAL competition , *IDEOLOGY , *POLITICAL parties , *RISK aversion , *COST , *VOTER attitudes , *MATHEMATICAL models , *ECONOMICS ,EUROPEAN politics & government, 1989- - Abstract
We present a formal model of party competition to explain differences in party ideological ambiguity. Existing works generally argue that parties are more or less ambiguous depending on whether their supporters are risk-acceptant or risk-averse. Our model explores more fully strategic choice of ambiguity by considering nonelectoral benefits to ambiguity--that is, party elite recruitment and retention. In terms of costs, we assume that all voters are risk-averse, who therefore prefer less ideological ambiguity. Explicitly considering both costs and benefits derives our hypotheses and highlights the importance of party competition--ambiguity is influenced by the proximity to a party's closest ideological competitor. An empirical analysis of twenty-eight European countries supports our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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