Coping with Complexity How Voters Adapt to Unstable Parties [Hardcover]

This book examines how voters cope with the complexity triggered by party instability.When parties undergo abrupt organisational changes between elections  such as when they fuse, split, join or abandon party lists  they alter profoundly the organisation and supply of electoral information to voters. The alternatives on the ballot are no longer fixed but need to be actively sought out instead. This book examines how voters cope with the complexity triggered by party instability. Breaking with previous literature, it suggests that voters are versatile and ingenious decision-makers. They adapt to informational complexity with a set of cognitively less costly heuristics uniquely suited to the challenges they face. A closer look at the impact of party instability on the vote advances and qualifies quintessential theories of vote choice, including proximity voting, direction-intensity appeals, economic voting and the use of cognitive heuristics. The rich and nuanced findings illustrate that political parties hold a key to understanding voter behaviour and representation in modern democracy.Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables ixList of Abbreviations xiAcknowledgements xiiiChapter One  Coping with Complexity: Introduction to theResearch Problem 1Chapter Two  Voting in Complex Information Environments:A Theoretical Framework 13Chapter Three  Electoral Instability in Parties: Concept,Measurement and Dynamics 31Chapter Four  Seeking Information: Voter Knowledge ofParty Positions 45Chapter Five  Heuristics for Unstable Parties: How Voters Cope 61Chapter Six  Judging Competence: The Economic Vote 83Chapter Seven  Conclusion: A New Look at Old Theories 103Appendix: Party Instability Data 115Appendix to Chapter Four 121Appendix to Chapter Six 125Appendix: Party Names 131Bibliography 135Index 151Dani Marinova is Juan de la Cierva Fellow at Universitat Aut?noma de Barcelona. She completed a PhD in Political Science at Indiana University in 2012. She studies how poll#