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Insights from the Field

Beyond Position Ambiguity: The Two Faces of Party Ambiguity


item response theory
chalpel hill expert survey
party positions
Comparative Politics
BJPS
15 R files
2 text files
19 datasets
8 other files
6 PDF files
Dataverse
The Two Faces of Party Ambiguity: A Comprehensive Model of Ambiguous Party Perceptions was authored by Lukas F. Stoetzer and Dominic Nyhuis. It was published by Cambridge in BJPS in 2021.

Vote choices can be blocked by uncertainty over party positions.

* This article tackles a core problem in political science research:

measuring perceived party ambiguity effectively.

We introduce the "Two-Faces" model, which explicitly estimates two distinct facets of party ambiguity: non-position and positional inconsistency.

Statistical Innovation:* Using issue perceptions data within an Item Response Theory framework provides unprecedented precision.

Applying this model to expert survey data reveals key distinctions between traditional measures and our novel approach. Our findings suggest that parties' ambiguous standing stems from both a lack of positions (non-position) AND inconsistent ones — two different drivers requiring separate attention.

Theoretical Contribution:* Traditional research often missed the "involuntary ambiguity" component, potentially overlooking crucial dynamics in voter decision-making.

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