ABSTRACT
Despite the richness of extant studies on the use of party cues as information short-cuts,
there is a significant limitation: since most studies focus predominantly on the two main parties
in the United States, we do not know whether and to what extent other party labels are used as
heuristic devices. This paper seeks to address this limitation by expanding the geographical span
of our understanding of the effect of party cues. Our principal focus is the degree to which
different party labels, across different institutional contexts, influence how individuals form and
express opinions on a range of political issues. We also investigate the moderating influence of
partisanship and issue complexity. We present a set of results from an experimental study
conducted in three countries: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our findings show that
the influence of party cues on the expression of opinions varies greatly when one moves beyond
the two major parties in the United States. The results vary by party and country, there is some
evidence that partisanship influences whether or not cues are used, and there is mixed evidence
about the role of issue complexity in the usefulness of party cues.
2
Convention