Personal or Impersonal Evaluations? Political Sophistication and Citizen Conceptions of the Democratic Process

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6265383
AutoresLauri Rapeli (0000-0003-0248-2763, Åbo Akademi University), Åsa Von Schoultz (0000-0002-0708-3908, University of Helsinki)
Año2023
Volumen58
Número3
Páginas415-436
Fecha de publicación2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGovernment and Opposition (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0017-257X • E-ISSN: 1477-7053
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/gov.2021.59
OpenAlexW4200247414
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas45

An energetic scholarly debate discusses possible reforms of representative democracy. Some support participatory forms of democracy, others a more elite-driven or technocratic democracy. This study contributes to the growing literature on the subject by emphasizing political sophistication as a theoretically relevant predictor of attitudes to democracy: different models of democracy make different demands regarding the political sophistication of citizens. The analysis includes two dimensions and three measures of sophistication: personal sophistication measured as political knowledge and internal efficacy, and impersonal sophistication measured as assessment of others’ political competence. Using the 2011 Finnish National Election Study, we find that perceptions of the sophistication of others have a substantial impact on preferences for political decision-making, and that politically sophisticated people support representative democracy. The analysis shows that perceptions of others’ political competence, which has been largely neglected by previous research, is a both theoretically and empirically relevant predictor of preferences for political decision-making processes

Competence (human resources · Democracy · Economics · Elite · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · Sophistication · Technocracy · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology