Political knowledge in complex information environments

To cast a meaningful ballot, voters ought to have sufficient knowledge of competing parties. As parties often change between elections (for example, merge, split), they breed electoral complexity, with potential consequences for voter ability to take party cues and make informed decisions. Owing to the demands placed on their attention and cognition, voters are generally less capable of taking party cues as parties erratically transform. This finding has several nuances: the impact of party instability depends both on its type and overall degree, as well as on voters' disparate abilities to handle electoral complexity. First, voters tend to know considerably less about new parties and splinters than they do about preexisting parties; yet they are more knowledgeable about newly formed mergers and joint lists. Second, voters who experience only occasional peaks in instability are more adversely affected than voters in new, fluid party systems. Lastly as instability increases, the positive effect of education on political knowledge diminishes, suggesting that even the well-educated have difficulty sorting through electoral alternatives as parties change. The overall loss in knowledge associated with high instability speaks to the important role political parties have in facilitating the acquisition of electoral information and for political representation more broadly.