Information and polarization

Informed voters are believed to be essential for elections to function well; however, this belief neglects political candidates’ strategies in response to the changing distribution of voter information. This study shows that increased information can induce polarization even when voters are rational and the information is valuable. We consider an election with policy-motivated candidates and partially informed voters. Voters rely on private signals, the precision of which is regarded as information, to infer their policy preferences. We demonstrate that the changing distribution of information drives mass polarization (i.e., variance in voters’ ideologies) and political polarization (i.e., the distance between policy platforms) even without any changes in voter preferences. In short, when voters become more informed, politics will become more polarized. However, polarization is not necessarily welfare-deteriorating since it provides voters with more choices.