Apathetic accountability

Conventional wisdom suggests that parties adjust their ideological positioning to gain vote share. However, recent findings indicate that voters only alter their perceptions of party policy positions based on information they find credible. I extend these findings by testing whether citizens change their opinions toward a political party in response to information produced during a campaign. Using data from two German Election Panel Studies covering 2002-2013, I demonstrate that partisans change their opinions toward their party based on information produced during the campaign. Moreover, I demonstrate that partisans are more likely to utilize information produced in campaigns than nonpartisans to form their perceptions of a party's ideological positioning. These findings have important implications for party election strategies and for political representation