Why moderate voters choose extreme candidates: voter uncertainty as a driver of elite polarization.
Representative democracy depends on elected officials reflecting voters' policy preferences. Yet, US elected officials are more ideologically extreme than even the voters from their own party. This disparity is especially puzzling in light of recent studies reinforcing the view that voters are highl...
| Publicado en: | Social Forces Vol. 105; no. 1; pp. 234 - 257 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Sep2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196060153&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196060153 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00377732 SFR jtl: Social Forces issn: 00377732 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 105 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 196060153 10.1093/sf/soaf199 ppf: 234 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: Why moderate voters choose extreme candidates: voter uncertainty as a driver of elite polarization. aug: au: Kim, Minjae DellaPosta, Daniel Essig, Liam W affil: Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, Yale University, 165 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06511, United States Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building, 137 Fischer Road, University Park, PA 16802, United States keyword: copyrightHolder:University of North Carolina Chapel Hill copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en mathematical sociology political sociology/politics publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf199 social psychology copyrightHolder:University of North Carolina Chapel Hill copyrightYear:2026 inLanguage:en mathematical sociology political sociology/politics publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf199 social psychology ab: Representative democracy depends on elected officials reflecting voters' policy preferences. Yet, US elected officials are more ideologically extreme than even the voters from their own party. This disparity is especially puzzling in light of recent studies reinforcing the view that voters are highly motivated by policy preferences and ideological fit when selecting among candidates. Using both agent-based computational models and an online vignette experiment, we uncover a novel mechanism through which candidates who rigidly back the party's ideological priorities, even when doing so is unpopular among the party's own voters, may paradoxically benefit because partisan voters under conditions of uncertainty infer that such candidates are also likelier than more moderate and representative candidates to support the party's other (more popular) positions. This dynamic alone can produce a world with moderately partisan voters but extreme politicians, not despite but precisely because of those voters' motivation to see their (relatively moderate) policy preferences reflected by their elected representatives. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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