Perceptual Accuracy and Issue Saliency
The accuracy of voters’ perceptions of party issue positions is critical for the functioning of representative democracy, and as a result, it has received heightened scholarly attention in recent years, thanks mainly to the availability of survey data asking respondents about their perceptions of party left-right positions. Yet, while the left-right scale is still highly salient in advanced democracies, and it is important to understand whether voters accurately perceive parties’ left-right positions, what we do not know is whether voters accurately perceive party positions on single issue dimensions, such as income inequality, immigration, environment, etc., and how the varying salience of these issue areas affect voters’ perceived accuracy. Using original voter and expert-level surveys from nine advanced democracies, we argue that the higher the issue saliency for the voter, the more accurately they perceive the party issue positions. Yet, we also argue that the effect should be curvilinear: when the issue is very salient, the respondents are more likely to use their priors in forming their perceptions of party positions, which reduces accuracy. We find support for our expectations.
Date: 2 February 2024, 13:00 (Friday, 3rd week, Hilary 2024)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Room A
Speaker: Zeynep Somer-Topcu (University of Texas-Austin)
Organising department: Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR)
Part of: Politics Research Colloquium
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Alexander Kuo, Daniel Burton