Same problem, different perception? An experimental research on attributes of political issues

The paper presents an experimental research (laboratory experiment, done in the Czech Republic in 2023), epistemologically based on the belief that an important part of politics and electoral competition is not only the manipulation of the salience of particular issues (Abou-Chadi, 2018; Costello, Toshkov, Bos, & Krouwel, 2021; Sigelman & Buell, 2004) but also the manipulation of the attributes that particular issues have. In particular, our research focuses on the concept of "hard and easy" political issues (Carmines & Stimson, 1980), originally used to deconstruct the belief that choices based on political issues are made primarily by the most politically sophisticated voters. "Hard and easy issues" have soon become a widely used concept in political science with immense explanation potential. It is therefore surprising how little research has been done on the properties of the hard and easy issues themselves, especially from the perspective of the voters. It is. e.g., conceivable that one issue can exist at the same moment as both "easy" and "hard" for different electorates and influence the political attitudes of these electorates through different mechanisms. The presented experimental study is thus trying to fill this gap and address the issue whether easy and hard issues are for voters subjective or objective categories. In particular, the variance of the attributes corresponding to the hard and easy issues in the selected issues (which have been chosen to match the definitions of hard and easy issues in the Czech political space at the time of the research) will be examined. The findings will allow us to better theorize about easy and hard issues and also to propose a future methodology for working with them at the level of the voters. The presented experiment is a part of a more comprehensive research project on properties of political issues which was supported by Czech Science Foundation.