ABSTRACT

There is growing interest in the concept of political knowledge. Much research in the area is broadly normative in intent, focusing on what can be labelled 'civics' knowledge - i.e. knowledge about government and political institutions - and how it might be expected to affect the functioning of democracy (see Schumpeter, 1967). There is substantial evidence that this type of political knowledge is generally low, especially in the United States (see Fishkin, 1999). Moreover, research is quite convincing that the electorate is stratified according to political knowledge, with the knowledgeable tending to differ from the less knowledgeable in the structure, consistency and stability of their political attitudes and ideologies (see, for example, Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996; Bartle, 1997; Sinnott, 2000).