On the heresthetics of salience: competing over voters attention

Ianni, Antonella, Marreiros, Helia and Katsimi, Margarita (2025) On the heresthetics of salience: competing over voters attention (Submitted)

Abstract

This paper investigates a voting model in which two candidates strategically compete in a winner-take-all election setting. Voters not only consider the spatial dimension of policy positions but also evaluate other attributes, or valence, of each candidate. Candidates are policy motivated and endeavor to make specific attributes ”salient” in voters’ minds by leveraging their comparative advantages to influence the voting outcome - a form of ”heresthetic” behaviour. Our theoretical analysis characterizes the resulting Salient Political Equilibria, demonstrating that salience endogenously shifts electoral outcomes away from median voter predictions. To test these insights, we design a laboratory experiment that isolates the behavioral impact of salience and provides direct evidence of choice reversals in response to attribute framing. Finally, we exploit the 2015 European refugee crisis as a natural experiment to show that real-world political parties adapt their platforms in line with the model’s comparative statics. Taken together, the theoretical, experimental, and empirical results underscore the central role of salience in shaping electoral dynamics and offer a novel lens for understanding strategic political behavior.

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Contributors

Author: Antonella Ianni

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