Political Knowledge in Times of Crisis

How well informed are voters in times of economic upheaval? The received wisdom is that voters have only scant knowledge of politics and are on the whole apathetic toward public affairs. However, in turbulent economic times, there is reason to believe that voters' stake in politics is greater and so is their knowledge thereof. During times of relative economic well-being, it is arguably rational of voters not to monitor closely politicians or to keep informed of public affairs. As long as policy and economic outputs are satisfactory, voters can comfortably delegate public policy to policy-makers. As a result, we should observe relatively low levels of political knowledge. However, in times of economic crisis voters have incentives to pay much closer attention to politicians’ decisions and to keep abreast of the economic and political situation. This in turn should translate into observable differences in knowledge about public affairs during times of economic well-being and times of recession. We will test our expectations in two complimentary ways. First, we will make use of the temporal and cross-national variation in economic performance that resulted from the recent global economic recession. Using CSES data, we will investigate to what extent citizens became any more informed of political issues during the crisis and, in particular, in those countries hardest hit by the recession. Second, we will make use of a 5-wave panel survey of Spanish citizens carried out between 2010 and 2013, during which period the Spanish economy plummeted considerably. The findings of our research have important implications for our current understanding of political behavior and electoral representation. Our study adds to the debate on the rationality of low political knowledge Furthermore, in suggesting that the strength of the principal-agent link varies by economic outputs, our findings help qualify existing theories of democratic representation.