Are citizens politically competent? The evidence from political psychology
Book Chapter
Ditonto, T, Mattes, K, Tobin, J. (2024). Are citizens politically competent? The evidence from political psychology
. 172-205. 10.4337/9781803924830.00018
Ditonto, T, Mattes, K, Tobin, J. (2024). Are citizens politically competent? The evidence from political psychology
. 172-205. 10.4337/9781803924830.00018
How competent are democratic citizens? This question has been at the heart of much research on political knowledge, public opinion and voter decision-making since studies of mass political behavior began. Scholars have approached the question in many different ways, leading to a number of large and overlapping literatures that address aspects of political competence in various ways. In this chapter, we consider the evidence related to political cognition, taking into account research on political knowledge, heuristics, dual process theories, emotions and motivated reasoning, among other things. We discuss these literatures while paying particular attention to recent substantive and methodological innovations. This research both gives us hope that citizens can be competent but also reason to believe that certain factors often stand in the way of citizens meeting many standards of competence.
