Dumb Citizens or Bad Assumptions? Underestimating the Competence of Citizens

• In Event: Cues vs. Content: How People Reason about Politics

Abstract

Many studies suggest that citizens' policy preferences are inconsistent with underlying interests or priorities. Traditionally, these studies measure the importance citizens attach to a particular priority and examine whether their policy preferences align with that priority. However, this widespread approach makes two critical oversights: First, different priorities are relevant to different policy issues. Second, citizens can ground each policy preference in many different priorities. I fix these problems in a randomized survey, wherein a representative sample of Americans matches multiple priorities with multiple policy proposals. I find that scholars' decisions on what priorities and policies to study greatly impact how competent citizens seem. Moreover, accounting for the fact that citizens can ground their preferences in different priorities reveals that citizens are far more competent than past research has suggested. The apparent incompetence of citizens is more a reflection of scholars' choices than citizens themselves.

Author

• Nicholas Carlo Dias, University of Pennsylvania