A Comparative Study of Citizens’ Evaluations of Campaign Pledge Fulfilment in Six Countries

Authors: François Petry (Laval, Canada) Robert Thomson (Strathclyde, UK) Elin Naurin (Gothenburg, Sweden) Anna Belchior (CIES, Portugal) Heinz Brandenburg (Strathclyde, UK) Dominic Duval (Laval, Canada) Justin Leinaweaver (Drury, USA) Henrik Oscarsson (Gothenburg, Sweden) We compare citizens’ evaluations of the fulfillment of more than thirty specific campaign pledges in Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United-States using data from recent national election surveys. Firstly, we identify the conditions under which information shortcuts, in particular party identification and political trust, lead citizens to make accurate evaluations of pledge fulfillment, as well as the conditions under which the same information shortcuts mislead citizens into making inaccurate evaluations. Next, we examine the interactions between information shortcuts and political knowledge in order to estimate the extent to which the effect of information shortcuts varies depending on the level of respondents’ political knowledge. Finally, we examine whether the relationships between the accuracy of citizens’ evaluations of pledge fulfillment, information shortcuts and political knowledge varies depending on characteristics of the pledges, in particular on the electoral saliency of the pledges, and on national contexts. Keywords: citizens’ evaluations of campaign promises; information shortcuts; party identification; trust; political knowledge.