La evaluación de escalas de conocimiento político entre países: evidencia de América Latina

Abstract

An informed public is viewed as essential for democratic representation. Exist- ing work suggests individual-level characteristics such as education affect political information. But contextual factors such as level of democracy and type of electoral system may also impede or facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. However, survey questions often vary across countries, making it difficult to identify the role of con- textual factors. Using the AmericasBarometer surveys from Latin America and the Caribbean, this paper compares alternative scaling methods and demonstrates that the conclusions about knowledge cross-nationally depend on the measure used. The analyses compare a raw additive scale, a standardized additive scale, factor scores, item response scores with anchoring, and item response scores with bridging. The conventional additive scale suggests that very little predicts variation in knowledge across countries, while the alternatives show that factors such democracy, telecom- munications, ethnolinguistic diversity, and electoral system have substantial effects on knowledge.