Political Information Acquisition for Social Exchange

Gani Aldashev

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2010, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-25

Abstract: Why do citizens get politically informed in a democracy? On one hand, being informed allows a citizen to participate in political discussions within her social network. On the other hand, having an informed opinion can help her to extend her social network. This paper builds a simple model on these insights and finds that effort in political information acquisition has inverted-U shape in the size of social network. The data from the 2000 American National Election Study and the 2002–2006 European Social Surveys confirm this theory: political information acquisition, political knowledge, and interest in politics increase with the size of social network, at a decreasing rate. The effect of social network is much weaker for the political efficacy measures for the United States, but not for Europe.

Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Political information acquisition for social exchange (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00009009

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