Role Of Political Knowledge Research Articles

Can high school competitive debating facilitate political participation? The role of political knowledge and identification with a politically active group

Although young people express dissatisfaction with their lives and politics, research indicates a decline in youth political participation. Therefore, it is important to investigate activities that could incentivize youth to be more engaged in politics. Available studies suggest that debating in high-school debate clubs could lead to a greater intention to participate in politics. This study investigates the relationship between debating and political participation, and further explores political knowledge and identification with a group of debaters as potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. A total of 175 members of high school debate clubs from Croatia participated in the study. Results showed a positive association between the longevity of membership in a high school debate club and the intention to participate in politics. This relationship was completely mediated by greater political knowledge and identification with the group of debaters, meaning a group of politically active young people. In practice, these findings suggest young people, especially ones that have less political knowledge and are not inclined to participate in politics, should be incentivized to join debate clubs or similar activities.

Between knowing and feeling: emotions and the vote in the 2017 Chilean presidential election

How do citizens decide who to vote for in an election? Traditional answers focus on the role of political knowledge, party identification, and evaluations of the past performance of governments as explanatory variables. In this study we evaluate an alternative argument: the role of emotions. Using data from a survey carried out following the Chilean general elections of December 2017, this article investigates the association of emotions with the vote for Sebastián Piñera, and how emotions interact with other relevant factors that correlate with the vote. We conclude that in Chile, together with party identification and the evaluation of past governments, the emotions aroused by candidates are strongly associated with the voting decision.

Mobilizing Millennial Voters with Targeted Internet Advertisements: A Field Experiment

Internet advertisements have come under tremendous scrutiny recently for their potential to impact electoral outcomes. However, academic research has yet to determine if they have an effect on turnout. This article presents the results of a preregistered field experiment conducted in Dallas, Texas, in partnership with The Dallas Morning News in which individually targeted banner ads were able to generate a statistically significant increase in turnout among Millennial voters in a municipal election. The results show that a combination of information and voting reminder ads was effective, but only for voters in competitive districts. Estimated treatment effects were on par with a telephone mobilization campaign using live callers. These findings contribute to theoretical knowledge about the role of political knowledge and electoral competitiveness in voter mobilization, and offer a new method for testing online advertisements used by political campaigns.

The Relationship between Cultural Values and Political Ideology, and the Role of Political Knowledge

Cultural theory maintains that four worldviews—egalitarianism, individualism, hierarchicalism, and fatalism—can be used to describe people and societies. We examine survey measures of two of those worldviews—egalitarianism and individualism—to understand their relationship with belief systems. Contrary to what one might expect based on the cultural theory literature, we find that people with low levels of political knowledge seem not to have coherent worldviews regarding these issues. In contrast, people with high levels of political knowledge respond to egalitarianism and individualism questions as if they were opposite ends of a single, liberal‐conservative continuum, rather than two of four distinct worldviews. We conclude that cultural theory researchers should take account of the influence of political knowledge whenever they investigate worldviews.