Political Equality and the Resource-Dependence of Political Sophistication: A Comparative Perspective

Although there are various conceptualizations of political sophistication and political knowledge extant in the literature, almost all of the indicators of these concepts show clear correlations with education. Further, education usually correlates with social stratification. Thus, the political presentation of the socially and/or economically disadvantaged may be hampered to the degree that political knowledge and political sophistication distorts political choices and attitudes. On the other hand, the political heuristics literature has often stressed the role of the political environment for making heuristics useful or available at all. For this reason, the same gradient in political knowledge and political sophistication in a democracy's population need not always lead to the same discrepancy in the quality of political representation of different social classes. Based on these considerations, I explore the relation between education, political sophistication and political participation in a comparative perspective. More specifically, I examine how particular properties of the political system impinge on this relation.