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Incognizance and Perceptual Deviation: Individual and Institutional Sources of Variation in Citizens’ Perceptions of Party Placements on the Left–Right Scale

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Abstract

In this paper we use comparative study of electoral systems data to understand the variation in citizens’ perceptions of political party placements on the left–right scale. We estimate multilevel models to assess the extent to which individual characteristics, party characteristics, and institutional designs contribute to variability observed in citizens’ perceptions of party placements. Because lack of information on the part of the citizens may be revealed through failure to respond to the left–right scale questions or through random components to actual placements, we develop models that include assessments of both types of responses to reduce bias from considering only one source. We find that individual-, party-, and institutional-level variables are relevant to understanding variation in citizens’ perceptions of party placements. Finally, we demonstrate that an inability to cognize the left–right scale (incognizance) and a deviation in the perceptions of party positions (perceptual deviation) have important consequences for citizens’ thermometer evaluations of political parties.

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Notes

  1. A similar argument was made with respect to the need to consider variation in measurement of approval of presidential performance. See Gronke and Brehm (2002).

  2. Some respondents may decide not to use the scale, even if they are familiar with it. For example, supporters of anti-system parties may choose not to answer questions about the scale. Because these respondents are not willing to use the scale, it is clear that they do not rely on it for the communication of their political preferences. Consequently, they fall short of using the scale meaningfully, and they do not satisfy the conditions identified by Campbell et al. (1960).

  3. For further discussion of the organizational challenges new parties face in a democratic system, see Mair and Van Biezen (2001), Van Biezen (2003), and Dalton (2011).

  4. A new democracy also may have a less stable party system, which we believe will further contribute to more incognizance and perceptual deviation. For further discussion, see Dalton (2011).

  5. For a similar discussion on how different political institutions clarify or obscure voters’ responsibility attribution, see Hobolt et al. (2013).

  6. CSES data is available at www.cses.org/datacenter/module2/module2.htm. The data and replication code for this paper are available at the Political Behavior Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/polbehavior).

  7. Two nations (Belgium and Japan) asked only self-placement. Two cases (Taiwan and Portugal) included the module of questions in two national elections, so we have a total of 38 nation-elections.

  8. Although the overall percentage of citizens able to use the left–right scale has been considered for these countries in previous research (see Best and McDonald 2011), our analysis offers a detailed breakdown of the incognizance measures. Also, later in the paper, we analyze the determinants of incognizance, rather than simply reporting the percentages.

  9. For some institutions in Table A2, there is little variation in incognizance or the differences run in the opposite direction of our expectations. Because these results do not control for other potential influences on incognizance, they should be interpreted with caution. Instead, the models in Table 1 provide a more comprehensive examination of the estimated effects of institutional-level variables on incognizance.

  10. In preparation for our use of the predicted probabilities of incognizance in the perceptual deviation models, we intentionally exclude one of the country-level variables (age of democracy). More explanation of this action is included in the section on the analysis of perceptual deviation.

  11. Multilevel models are utilized in this analysis due to the existence of significant variance at the country level. For an analysis of this variation, please see the unconditional models in the Online Appendix (Table A10).

  12. It is possible that parties may compete on multiple dimensions in a given country, further adding to the difficulty of placing a party on a single left–right dimension. In these cases, the mean respondent placement and the expert placement of the parties likely combine the multiple dimensions into a single dimension, and these perceptions still can be seen as at least approximating the true position. Therefore, even in these cases, it is still worthwhile to analyze the distance between the respondent’s perception of the party’s placement and the “true” placement.

  13. The elite and the mass public might have different conceptions of the left–right scale and place parties accordingly in different positions. For example, in Mexico experts tend to locate the PRI on the center-right, the PAN on the right and PRD on the left of the ideological spectrum. However, voters used to think of the PRI as a party farther away on the right while agreeing with the experts on the location of the PRD as the left party and the PAN in the right-center of the ideological scale. According to Alejandro Moreno (1996), while the Mexican electorate used to think of the left–right scale in terms of the authoritarian and democratic dimension, experts judge parties on the traditional economic redistribution conception of the left–right scale.

  14. In particular, we use the logit estimates to form the linear combination as reported in Table 1 and then use the logit transformation of that value to estimate the probability that the individual responds as incognizant. Thus, for example, the results in column 1 of Table 1 are used to predict the probability that the individual did not place him or herself on the left–right scale. We use the predicted probability from the logit transformation rather than the underlying linear form because it is in fact answering the question we ask, “how likely is this person to not place him or herself on the scale,” and because it has the effect of weighting the extreme values less and placing greater weight on those near the margin of responding or not.

  15. As Tables 1 and 2 show, this means that we have, in each case, one variable included in one but not the other estimation (and in both cases the included variable is statistically significant in the estimation). Thus, if we treat this as akin to a selection bias problem (as it rather is, even if differing in technical details), we have these variables as our identifying restrictions. While our model is, by the construction of the questions in the survey, strictly recursive, by excluding one variable in one equation that is included in the other equation, we meet the necessary condition for identification, even if this were a non-recursive system.

  16. Along with substituting one variable, the addition of the age of democracy variable serves as an extra precaution for meeting the necessary conditions for identification.

  17. As further evidence of the mixed results, both party vote and party ideology are positively and significantly associated with perceptual deviation in one of the tables.

  18. In the Online Appendix (Tables A7 and A8), we also report the results of estimation using only the major parties. Table A7 uses the distance to mean placement variable, and Table A8 uses the distance to expert placement variable.

  19. Some variables have similar sized coefficient estimates, so that there might be a higher degree of collinearity leading to larger than otherwise standard errors. However, if so, that is not due to our incognizance variables, because the plurality variable, for example, has the same magnitude as it has before and as it has in other models in this table, indicating that, if it is any variable, it is the distance from the average to the respondent’s placement measure.

  20. Given how closely party evaluations track the actual vote, they have real behavioral consequences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    John H. Aldrich

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA

    Gregory S. Schober

  3. Division of Political Studies, CIDE, Mexico City, Mexico

    Sandra Ley

  4. School of Government, ITESM, Mexico City, Mexico

    Marco Fernandez

Authors
  1. John H. Aldrich
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  2. Gregory S. Schober
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  3. Sandra Ley
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  4. Marco Fernandez
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Correspondence to Sandra Ley.

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Aldrich, J.H., Schober, G.S., Ley, S. et al. Incognizance and Perceptual Deviation: Individual and Institutional Sources of Variation in Citizens’ Perceptions of Party Placements on the Left–Right Scale. Polit Behav 40, 415–433 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-017-9406-8

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