Uncertainty and Political Perceptions

Abstract

The world of politics is uncertain. Citizens are only imperfectly informed about current governmental actions and about the promises of politicians regarding future courses of public policy. Politicians and candidates, moreover, often have incentives to disseminate ambiguous and perhaps inconsistent information. Previous work, both theoretical and empirical, has largely failed to incorporate this uncertainty into the analysis of public opinion and electoral behavior. In this paper we discuss measures designed to elicit the uncertainty survey respondents feel about their political perceptions. These measures demonstrate response patterns which are interpretable and substantively interesting. Also, the response patterns are consistent with a model relating uncertainty to citizen information costs. And last, these measures allow us to understand the stated perceptions of respondents in novel and important ways.

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