Using the Label Wisely: A Fresh Take on Political Sophistication and Partisan Cues

Abstract:     
Much of the political sophistication literature in political science assumes that the use of party cues in the voting booth is the hallmark of a distinctly unsophisticated voter (Converse 1964, Luskin 1987). The present piece seeks to examine another possibility: namely that the use of party cues may not preclude a voter from inclusion in the realm of the sophisticated voter. This paper borrows heavily from the psychology literature on scientific decision making, attempting to suggest an alternative way to distinguish voters along the “scientific-ness” of their decision making process. This paper uses NES 1994 post-election survey data to create logit models. These models indicate that voters that use party cues may at least look a lot like the sophisticated voter in many interesting ways.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 41

working papers series