Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-197) and index.
Contents:
Part I. Why and how promises matter : 1. A closer look at campaign promises -- 2. Promises as signals of commitment -- Part II. Promises as a special type of position-taking : 3. Campaign promises from 1960-2012 -- 4. Voter perceptions of promises -- Part III. The effect of promises on voter behavior : 5. How promises polarize voters -- 6. Further testing the effects promises -- 7. Promising in retrospect -- 8. Promises in 2016 and beyond.
Summary:
"Campaign promises are a critical component to conceptions of democratic representation. Candidates make promises, voters (prospectively) use those promises to choose candidates, and then evaluate them (retrospectively) based on those promises. Most research dedicated to understanding campaign promises focuses on promise fulfillment. Other research considers how candidate positions on various policies influence voter decision-making but ignores candidate commitment to those issues. I argue that understanding how campaign promises function during campaigns is an important missing piece to our understanding of representation. In context of campaigns, I offer an important conceptual clarification to the theory of promises by defining promises operationally as policy statements that indicate an action the candidate intends to carry out if elected. Thus, policy statements can be issued without promising, indicating a candidate's stance on an issue. This critical distinction, I argue, leads to several important contributions to our understanding for how promises matter to voters both prospectively and retrospectively that I test observationally and experimentally throughout the book. I develop a theoretical framework to examine how the conceptual distinction in campaign promises might matter by rigorously defining promises and giving context to what we already understand about promises. I argue that promising increases a candidate's appeared commitment on an issue. Because campaign promises serve as a signal for what candidates will do if elected, by increasing commitment to an issue, candidates are sending a stronger signal about their intended actions in office. Because voters disapprove of candidates who act out of step with their policy platforms, there can be relative confidence that an increased commitment to a position does not come without consequence, thus cementing promises as a strong signal of commitment. It follows then that this stronger signal will be preferred by individuals who hold the same position on the issue, and will more strongly repulse individuals who disagree with the candidate. The result of this argument is that promises polarize voter opinions of candidates"-- Provided by publisher.
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