Do Islamist parties actually enjoy a political advantage? The Tunisian caseAbstract A recent literature review by Cammett and Luong discusses the political advantage of Islamist parties in North Africa and the Middle East. Yet, there is a lack of empirical evidence with regard to the mechanism through which the political advantage is assumed to work. Drawing on the concept of the individual use of heuristics, we are able to circumvent common measuring problems. We then argue that specific groups of citizens should have a higher likelihood to vote for Islamist parties as a result of the cues these parties provide. Testing our argument with data from the Arab Barometer for the Tunisian case, we find mixed results. In line with our expectations, respondents who prefer untested political actors are more likely to vote for Islamist parties, whereas -contrary to our hypothesis -respondents who value integrity are less likely to vote for these parties.
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