What Americans Know About Politics And Why It Matters Summary

How much does the public know about politics? This question has spurred debate about the adequacy of democratic decision making for many years. In political science, scholars such as Converse (1964), Delli and Keeter and many others have conceptualized and developed measures of political knowledge to understand its effect on political attitudes. In their book, What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters, Delli and Keeter find out that many citizens are informed about the details of politics, however, an equally large number of citizens are ignorant of “political facts”. In other words, they are questioning whether citizens are equipped with requisite knowledge to make democracy work. Using survey data, they claim that levels of public knowledge have remained steady, despite increase in technological innovations and upgrading of educational institutions. On the other hand, Altaus in his article find that unequal distribution of knowledge causes opinion surveys to be skewed in the direction of more informed citizens. Delli and Keeter along with Altaus have made major contribution to the study of public opinion by demonstrating that unequal distribution of political knowledge results in some group’s voice …show more content…
However, as they mentioned, not everyone agrees that low levels of civic knowledge constitute a threat to democratic principles. For instance, “realists” argue that instead of increasing civic knowledge, scholars need to rethink the definition of democracy itself. These authors suggest that democracy becomes more responsive and responsible, the more equitably informed its citizenry. For instance, for collective opinions to reflect the public interest, the citizens must be able to discern and articulate their