The Theory of Political Ambiguity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3592986 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benjamin I Page (0000-0002-0889-0015, University of Chicago, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1976 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 742-752 |
| Publication date | 1976-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1959865 |
| OpenAlex | W2147641995 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 168 |
| References cited | 34 |
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
Ambiguity · Appeal · Cognitive psychology · Economics · Expected utility hypothesis · Law and economics · Lottery · Mathematical economics · Microeconomics · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Preference · Prospect theory · Salience (neuroscience · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Game Theory and Voting Systems · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Israel, the Gaza war, and the 2024 US presidential election
Political Perception
Inside the Mental Voting Booth
Psychohistory and Political Psychology
Nonverbal Behavior and Leadership
Political Information Processing
The Poly-Psy Relationship
Cognitive Structural Analysis of Political Rhetoric
Affect and Political Judgment
Information and Electoral Attitudes
An Overview of the Field of Political Psychology
The Drunkard’s Search
The Psychological Underpinnings of Political Behavior
Decision Making in Presidential Primaries
Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science
Partisan Bonds
Symbolic Politics
Electoral contests over voter beliefs
Ambiguity in the Campaign, and in Office
Beyond naval manoeuvres
Governing by Ambiguity
Does it pay to avoid speaking straight about controversial issues? Impact of argumentative ambiguity on the perception of the speaker
Ambiguity Politics
Changing the Subject
Referential Cohesion, Ambiguity, Vagueness and Generality in Parliamentary Debate
From Foe to Friend
Cyprus
Choice vs. Action
The Psychology of Group Conflict and the Dynamics of Oppression
Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy
Communicating on electoral platforms
Los acuerdos de paz
If U.S. Senator Baker Were A Woman
The electoral lottery
Is there clarity in ambiguity? A literature review of party positional ambiguity
Tradition statt Innovation Die deutsche Presseberichterstattung über die Wahlkampfstrategien der Parteien zur Bundestagswahl 2017
Contesting Roles
Making comprehensible speeches when your constituents need it
Do People Contrast and Assimilate Candidate Ideology? An Experimental Test of the Projection Hypothesis
Believe It or Not? Partisanship, Preferences, and the Credibility of Campaign Promises
How politicians adapt to new media logic. A longitudinal perspective on accommodation to user-engagement on Facebook
Media Logic and Political Logic Online and Offline
The space between
Busy doing nothing
Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning
Understanding Campaign Strategy
Using Campaign Advertisements to Assess Campaign Processes
Revealing the Scope of the Small Donor Revolution
The politics of evasion
The future is (ever) promising
Keeping the team together
Economic Voting Appeals in Congressional Campaigns
Elementary Locational Analysis in Policy Space
Elementary locational analysis in policy space
Administrative Risk and Sexual Harassment
The 2013 Brussels Agreement and the Political Discourse of the Serbian Leadership
Projection Effects and the Role of Political Ambiguity
Dancing Around the Issue? Public Opinion and Strategic Vagueness in Parliamentary Speech
Issue Knowledge and Perceptions of Agreement in the 2004 Presidential General Election
Rhetorical Convergence and Issue Knowledge in the 2000 Presidential Election
Vote choice under certainty, risk, and uncertainty
Discussion of Women's Issues in the 1996 Internet Campaign
Obfuscation maximization-based decision-making
The Path to Intractability
Issue convergence or issue divergence in a political campaign
Mystifying but not misleading
Are voters cursed when politicians conceal policy preferences
Keeping the other candidate guessing
Projection effects and strategic ambiguity in electoral competition
Smoke screen
Campaign advertising and political ambiguity
Indicators of electoral victory
Listen to What I Say, Not How I Vote
Comparing the Implications of Strategies for Governing the Covid ‐19 Pandemic for the Political Robustness of Five European Political Regimes
Americans' Perceptions of Presidential Candidates
Editoral Comment
When Extremism Pays
Communicating Political Positions on European Issues
To Tell the Truth
Europolis and the European public sphere
Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically
Sobre la incertidumbre en las elecciones España 2000
El valor de la ambivalencia. Las actitudes ante la meritocracia, la igualdad y el Estado de Bienestar en España en perspectiva comparada
El valor de la ambivalencia las actitudes ante la meritocracia, la igualdad y el Estado de Bienestar en España en perspectiva comparada
Policy Voting, Projection, and Persuasion
Issue avoidance
Strategies of Single‐issue Interest Groups
Goal Ambiguity and Organizational Performance in U.S. Federal Agencies
Goal Ambiguity in U.S. Federal Agencies
Another Issue Comes Out
The art of political ambiguity
The Structure of Emotional Response
Let me be perfectly unclear
Elections and the Democratic Class Struggle
Coalition Governance with Incomplete Information
Resist to Commit
Clear as Black and White
Voters, Issues, and Elections
Too Important to Ignore? Why Ambiguity and Broad Appeals Fail with Rising Issue Salience
Strategically Ambiguous Identities
New Directions In Psychology
International encyclopedia of the social sciences.
Essays in positive economics
Relative importance of probabilities and payoffs in risk taking.
Le Comportement de l'Homme Rationnel devant le Risque
Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk
Risk Aversion in the Small and in the Large
An economic theory of democracy
Cycles of risk
Congress, The Electoral Connection
Congress
An Experimental Measurement of Utility
The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk
Stability in Competition
The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
The Electoral Process
The Strategy of Ambiguity
An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process
Spatial Models of Party Competition
| Unique citing works | 168 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,36 |
| Citation span | 1976 - 2026 (51) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 167 |