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The Theory of Political Ambiguity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Benjamin I. Page
Affiliation:
University of Chicago

Abstract

The ambiguity of politicians' words and actions is sometimes attributed to rational seeking of support or votes. Such an explanation must clearly specify the preferences and decision processes among constituents and the calculations by politicians which make ambiguity seem attractive.

The leading effort of this sort is Shepsle's lottery theory, in which politicians take probabilistic stands on issues in order to appeal to risk acceptant, expected-utility-maximizing voters. But the lottery theory suffers from several difficulties. Its predictions are not strong; it can at best account for only certain kinds of observed ambiguous behavior; its main condition for the prediction of ambiguity—risk acceptance among constituents—may not be met; and the expected utility model of risky decision making is not well supported by available evidence.

An emphasis allocation theory is suggested as an alternative. According to it, ambiguity involves an effort to reduce the salience of conflictual matters (such as specific policy alternatives) in the evaluation of politicians, so that attention will be paid to consensual appeals (peace, prosperity, honesty in government).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1976

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References

1 See, for example, Kelley, Stanley Jr., Political Campaigning: Problems in Creating an Informed Electorate (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1960)Google Scholar.

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15 The leading multidimensional models of electoral competition, too, rule out variations in emphasis, or candidate manipulations of issue salience, since they postulate clear perceptions of stands and salience that is fixed with respect to candidate behavior. Davis, Otto A., Hinich, Melvin J. and Ordeshook, Peter C., “An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process,” American Political Science Review, 64 (06, 1970), 426–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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38 A different theoretical approach might recognize that perceptions vary, and seek incentives for ambiguity in the fact that it permits citizens to project or selectively perceive that candidates stand for whatever they want them to. It is not obvious, however, why projection would gain a candidate any votes that he wouldn't get through low emphasis. Projection probably uses up some amount of evaluation rather than adding to it. If positive projection does add to positive evaluations, it is not clear why it would not be counterbalanced by negative projection adding to negative evaluations.

39 Davis, Hinich and Ordeshook, “An Expository Development.”

40 Here intensity is conceived of in terms of the height and steepness of utility functions—that is, the amount of utility loss between favored and disfavored policies. Shepsle, p. 565, more narrowly identifies intensity with increasing marginal utility.

41 This analysis, cast in terms of rational economic man, could alternatively be expressed in terms of candidates' appeals to social-psychological man, who is prey to manipulation by symbols with high value content. (See, for example, the attitudinal consistency theories of Heider, Osgood, Abelson and Rosenberg, Festinger, Fishbein, and others.) Thus candidates attempt to link themselves to strongly positive concepts like peace and prosperity, so that attitudes toward themselves will change in a positive direction; they try to link their opponents to negative concepts; and they avoid elements—like specific policy stands—with mixed or ambivalent value loadings.

The economic analysis offered here, however, would seem to have at least equal explanatory power and to be susceptible of greater precision. Whether there are any genuine conflicts between the theoretical traditions is an interesting question.

42 Specificity could be seen as an evaluative (issue) dimension, with the special property that a stand on it is partly determined by the specificity and emphasis put on policy dimensions; or it might be conceived of in terms of risk aversion.

43 Nixon on the Issues (New York: Nixon-Agnew Campaign Committee, 1968)Google Scholar.

44 These phenomen a are noted, but not fully explained, in Mayhew, David R., Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

45 For some reflections on this problem, see Kelley, Political Campaigning, chap. 4.

page 751 note 1 The general form of a lottery over policies 1, 2, and 3 is (a,b,1-a-b), where each of the three elements represents a probability associated with one policy. (Each must lie between 0 and 1, inclusive.) When the utility to each voter of this general lottery is calculated, using Table 1 and the EU algorithm, it becomes apparent that V and W prefer it to certainty of 2 if and only if a>.8(1-b); Y and Z prefer the lottery if and only if a < .2(1-b); and X never prefers the lottery, but is indifferent if b = 1: that is, if the lottery degenerates to certainty of 2. Given these conditions it is impossible to find permissible values for a and b such that a majority prefers the lottery.

page 752 note 2 The superiority of a skewed emphasis strategy to one giving nonzero emphasis to a lottery on B holds under EU evaluations of lotteries, but not necessarily under other models of risky decision making. The superiority of total emphasis on A to any strategy putting nonzero emphasis on a single stand on B holds regardless of reactions to risk.

page 752 note 3 This conclusion holds if candidates completely control emphasis and salience, but as we suggest in the text they generally do not, and must put some minimal emphasis on conflictual issues.