120 4 in Germany and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands (Vermeulen, 2018: 3). I understand this elite cueing as a potent source of stereotype formation for non-Muslim voters. Stereotypes have three basic functions in our societies. First, stereotypes enhance the self-esteem of groups (Turner 1975 as cited in Stangor and Schaller, 1996: 23). Indeed, discrimination and racism, which lie at the root of Islamophobia (Lajevardi and Oskooii, 2018), can be seen as vehicles to enhance the cultural self-esteem of majority groups. Second, stereotypes offer justifications to differentiate one group positively from others (Tajfel 1981 as cited in Stangor and Schaller, 1996: 19). This may well explain why mobilizing homosexuality as a justification for Islamophobia is such an attractive narrative (Mepschen et al., 2010). Third, stereotypes simplify information to make cognitively taxing tasks less difficult (see Stangor and Schaller, 1996: 20 for an overview of this literature). We know that voters often rely on stereotypes when deciding whom to vote for. For example, voters expect female politicians to be more left-leaning (O’Brien, 2019) and in favor of spending on education, childcare, healthcare and abortion, and male politicians to be more outspoken on crime, the economy, national security, immigration and the deficit (Dolan, 2014: 99). In the United States, voters expect black politicians to be more left-leaning than white politicians (Crowder-Meyer et al., 2018; McDermott, 1998). Although there is much less research on religion than ethnicity, race and gender, religion, too, serves as an informational cue (Jacobsmeier, 2013; McDermott, 2007, 2009). But studies of what policy stance voters deduce from a politician being Muslim are rare, despite anti-Muslim prejudice being electorally consequential (Jardina and Stephens-Dougan, 2021). We only know that voters assume Muslim politicians are less likely to condemn Muslim terrorists (Braman and Sinno, 2009: 262) and more likely to be in favor of refugee rights (Arnesen et al., 2019: 56). Many political scientists view the phenomenon of voters relying on stereotypes to evaluate politicians as a feature of voting in low-information settings and generally refer to them as heuristics, shortcuts or cues (Cutler, 2002). Heuristics play a key role in simplifying voters’ decision-making process (Crowder-Meyer et al., 2018). Indeed, they offer solutions when voters are faced with overly difficult decisions (Koch, 2000). Especially in low-information elections, voters take background characteristics such as religion, ethnicity, race, migration background and gender as cues from which to deduce policy positions (Koch, 2000; McDermott, 1998, 2007, 2009), thereby simplifying the process of deciding whom to vote for. Stereotypes based on the politician’s background are one example of a heuristic, but voter attitudes can also inform what voters expect of politicians, a process referred to as projection: arguably the most readily available, though egocentric, heuristic of all (Robbins and Krueger, 2005: 32). Here, voters expect politicians to hold the same policy positions as themselves because people tend to project their own ideas onto others (Conover and Feldman, 1989; Martinez, 1988) in an effort to avoid uncomfortable
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