Political Ignorance and Policy Preferences

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dc.contributor.authorCrampton, E.
dc.date.accessioned2009-03-23T00:11:45Z
dc.date.available2009-03-23T00:11:45Z
dc.date.issued2008en
dc.description.abstractLarge proportions of the electorate can best be described as politically ignorant. If casting a competent vote requires some basic knowledge of the incumbent’s identity, the workings of the political system, one’s own policy preferences and the policy preferences of the main candidates, many voters cannot vote competently. Wittman (1989) suggests that, if ignorance is unbiased, overall results will be determined by informed voters as the ignorant cancel each other out. Lupia and McCubbins (1998) provides a mechanism whereby voters with little information can take cues from more informed colleagues in order to vote as if they had the requisite information. Using data from a uniquely useful dataset, the 2005 New Zealand Election Survey, I show that both mechanisms fail. Political ignorance is not unbiased: rather, it strongly predicts policy and political party preferences after correcting for the demographic correlates of ignorance. Moreover, membership in the kinds of organizations held to allow the ignorant to overcome their deficiencies fails to improve outcomes. Voter ignorance remains a very serious problem.en
dc.identifier.citationCrampton, E. (2008) Political Ignorance and Policy Preferences. Washington, DC, USA: Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting, 20-23 Nov 2008.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10092/2230
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Canterbury. Economics.en
dc.rights.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10092/17651en
dc.subjectpublic choiceen
dc.subjectpolitical ignoranceen
dc.subject.marsdenFields of Research::360000 Policy and Political Science::360100 Political Science::360106 Governance and representationen
dc.subject.marsdenFields of Research::360000 Policy and Political Science::360100 Political Science::360101 New Zealand government and politicsen
dc.titlePolitical Ignorance and Policy Preferencesen
dc.typeConference Contributions - Published
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