ABSTRACT
Most citizens know very little about the political world. In a wide variety of studies, scholars report that in many cases Americans cannot provide correct answers on a range of information questions and that their preferences differ typically from those of individuals who get these questions right (Althaus 1998; Bartels 1996; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Gilens 2001). Worse yet, many times citizens are not only uninformed; they are misinformed, with a tendency to cling to inaccurate perceptions that shape their attitudes (Kuklinski et al. 2000; Hochschild 2001). Such findings have powerful implications for democratic theorists. To suggest that people may not know much or that their preferences would change were they more informed calls into question the very foundations of democracy.
