Resources, Abilities, Motivation and What Else? Studying Inequalities in Political Knowledge in Democratic Systems

Research on public often indicates that the overall level of information, knowledge and understanding of politics of the average citizen is relatively poor. Political ignorance of the public, and its resulting incompetence in democratic actions have induced a general pessimism in the literature. The situation becomes even more hopeless when considering the unequal distribution of knowledge among the citizens. The conventional wisdom is that the unequal distribution of political knowledge among the public is mainly a product of its capabilities and motivation. Since abilities and motivation are viewed in the literature as essentially social constants, there is little space for changes in the long term. However, recent studies argue that pessimism needs to be qualified. First, from a substantive point of view, it is argued that citizens’ political knowledge does not only depend on their capabilities and motivation, but also on contextual opportunities of becoming informed about politics. From this point of view, information-rich environments reduce knowledge inequalities. Second, from a methodological point of view, recent research argues that the common analytic definition of political knowledge (citizens’ ability to provide correct answers to a specific set of fact-based survey items) presents relevant problems of validity, something which might produce misleading conclusions about the general public’s competence. This workshop wants precisely to open a dialogue among these different branches in the study of political knowledge. Therefore, we welcome all contributions with a focus on the origin and size of all kinds of knowledge inequalities: resources-based, motivational-based, race-based or gender-based. Also, we are particularly interested in “new” sources of inequality or new research questions. More specifically, we welcome empirical papers based on survey or experimental data, case studies, and comparative research (depending on the specific issue analysed); but also theoretical pieces which challenge the effects of the classical determinants of political knowledge.