Browsing by Author "Zarate, Marques G"

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    How Citizens Form Perceptions of Political Pandering
    (2023-04-18) Zarate, Marques G; Hayes, Matthew; Marschall, Melissa
    How do citizens form perceptions of political pandering? People accuse politicians of pandering when they believe the politician is appealing to a group because they want their votes but do not intend on representing their interests. Although a relatively common accusation, there is very little systematic research that helps us understand how or why people come to these conclusions. In this dissertation project, I examine how voters use information about a politician, their background, and the type of appeal the politician makes to make inferences about the politician's motivation. Since voters cannot predict how a politician will act in the future or what their motive is at the time they make an appeal, voters use the information they have available to them to determine if a candidate genuinely wants to represent their interests. In the first empirical chapter, I argue that voters use information about a politician's past behavior to determine how the politician may act in the future. The second empirical chapter argues that the circumstances for how a candidate ended up competing in the election signals information about the candidate's motivation for running. In the last empirical chapter, I examine how the perceived quality of an appeal shape perceptions of pandering. These results suggest that voters leverage several forms of information to inform their opinion about whether a politician is pandering. By better understanding how perceptions of pandering are formed, we can identify strategies and tools that candidates and politicians can use to successfully convey their sincerity to potential voters.