Ambiguity in the positions of political parties: what causes it and how does it affect voters’ party preferences?
Ambiguity is widespread in politics: parties often obscure their true positions, give inconsistent signals, or simply remain silent to avoid taking a clear stance on a policy issue. Such ambiguity challenges democracy, as it prevents clarity in what policies parties pursue once in office and it blocks citizens from casting an informed vote. Yet, we only have fragmented and contradictory evidence on what causes party ambiguity and how it affects voters’ political preferences. The project innovates in three ways. (1) it reconceptualizes party ambiguity as a multidimensional phenomenon: ambiguity occurs when a party remains silent on its position on a specific issue, provides vague rather than precise information on its position, and is inconsistent in the positions it takes. (2) it theorizes and tests what causes parties to take an ambiguous stance and how this varies across context, parties, public opinion and issues, and (3) it investigates the consequences of ambiguity on voters’ party preferences. To achieve these goals, the project relies on a content analysis of party messaging in Belgium during a 22-year period (2003-2024), complemented by experiments with voters to assess how ambiguity affects their preferences in a controlled setting. In doing so, the project sheds clarity on ambiguity by advancing our understanding of what party ambiguity is, what causes it, and what it does to the public.
