Varieties of Ambiguity: How do Voters Evaluate Ambiguous Policy Statements?

Scholars voice increasing interest in strategic ambiguity—a strategy whereby parties intentionally conceal their positions on divisive issues. contend that ambiguity can help European broaden electoral appeals. Although they identify several tactics and styles of position-blurring, the observational literature has yet failed to capture different variants ambiguous rhetoric, let alone evaluate effect vote. In this article, I rely cross-country survey experiments utilize representative samples around 22,000 respondents from 14 countries four varieties ambiguity: vagueness, ambivalence, flip-flopping, negative messaging. investigate impact rhetoric vis-a-vis context competition facing party. The findings reveal consequences vary by actual form it takes First, among varieties, vague ambivalent were superior messaging or flip-flopping. Second, helped party absence popular policy offers system, while backfired when competitors explicitly agreed with voter. imply is generally a useful strategy, but its benefits do not extend rhetorical harm party’s valence image.