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Gaines, Brian J. Gaines, Brian J. Canache, Damarys Kuklinski, James Livny, Avital Waeiss, Charla S. 2019-08-23T20:35:48Z 2019-08-23T20:35:48Z 2021-08-24T09:15:10Z 2019-04-10 2019-05 "Electoral environments in democracies are complex. One of the key tools voters use to simplify the information environment in elections is the party-label heuristic. However, party labels themselves change and with considerable frequency. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the consequences of party-label changes for voters’ information, partisan identities, and corresponding behavior. As a result, this dissertation makes a series of contributions to our understanding of voter decision-making and partisanship. First, I create an original dataset of party-name changes across 43 democracies from 1990-2017, allowing scholars to quantify instances of party relabeling. Second, using these data paired with electoral surveys, I demonstrate that party relabeling limits the information voters have about the party, alters their voting considerations, and is associated with decreased levels of partisanship to such parties. Third, using a case study in Germany, I demonstrate that changes as innocuous and a party relabeling itself alters how that party’s followers see themselves, other parties, and even limits their willingness to engage with political actors. Fourth, I use the same case in Germany to highlight that parties can opt for new names that include informative signals, thereby improving voters’ knowledge about them. Finally, I contend that voters may come to rely on different heuristics when party labels are no longer reliable information shortcuts, pointing to party leaders as an alternative heuristic. In doing so, I develop two new measures to capture how voters view the ""typicality"" of party leaders vis-a-vis the party and the level of attachment voters express toward leaders over the party, expanding our extant understanding of partisanship and personalization." Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01 The student, Charla Waeiss, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-09 at 17:05. The student, Charla Waeiss, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-04-09 at 17:11. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-04-10 at 10:00. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13539 on 2019-08-22 at 15:05:43 Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:35:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 WAEISS-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf: 893457 bytes, checksum: 2fb45e1f87585ad01290cb694e436540 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4210 bytes, checksum: 8c1559398c86ce688f15341891d7772d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-04-10 Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112118 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:36:18Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 112118 on 2021-08-24T09:15:10Z. application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104999 en Copyright 2019 Charla Waeiss partisanship, heuristics, social identities, elections Information and identities in dynamic electoral environments text text Political Science Political Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.