University of Texas at Austin Unique number: Tuesday, 7:00-10:00, BAT 1.104

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1 Government 381L Robert C. Luskin Fall, 2011 University of Texas at Austin Unique number: Tuesday, 7:00-10:00, BAT Office: BAT Phone: , Office Hours: Monday 5:00-7:00, Wednesday 2:30-3:30, & by appointment Political Sophistication This course is about cognitive engagement in politics a dimension on which individual citizens vary enormously, from those who are walking New Republics or National Reviews or Guardians or Figaros to those who don't know who the President or Prime Minister is. (There are some.) And this variation matters, in ways we shall explore. Perhaps the broadest variable under this heading is political sophistication (a.k.a. awareness, cognitive complexity, and expertise): a matter of both the quantity and the organization of political cognition (regardless of accuracy). Closely related variables include political information (a matter simply of quantity, regardless of organization or accuracy), knowledge (the quantity of accurate cognition), and misinformation (the quantity of inaccurate cognition). We consider this whole family of variables: how best to measure them, who has how much of them and why, and to what extent and how they flavor political attitudes and behaviors. Many of the readings and much of the discussion will focus on these variables effects on the recognition and efficient pursuit of one's interests; policy and electoral preferences; attitude extremity; persuadability and the kinds of appeals most likely to be persuasive; political tolerance; the extent and direction of political participation; the weights given to candidate versus policy factors in voting; etc. Deliberation, in the conventional sense of serious, open-minded discussion, is also, if a shade more distantly, related, since many of its effects operate through political sophistication. Thus we shall also read about and discuss the Deliberative Polling project, which can be viewed as a quasi-experiment gauging political sophistication s effects on policy and electoral preferences. While many of the best data and much of the best work are on the U.S., it should be clear that these variables are at play, and their consequences felt, in every democratic polity. The course thus straddles American and Comparative Politics (and is listed in both fields). It also draws a great deal from psychology, relevant to both. Prerequisites There are no specific prerequisites. It is not important to have taken the core or any other previous course in Political Behavior, Comparative Politics, or American politics, nor to have taken graduate statistics courses (although I do encourage you to do so). First-year students are

2 specifically welcome, and have usually done well. Ad hoc tutoring in the rudiments of both software and statistics enough to do and interpret some simple analyses will be provided as needed. 2 Format This is a research seminar. Students will be expected to research, write, and present substantial papers, consulting as much as necessary with me individually in the process. My hope is that many will form the bases of publishable articles or dissertation chapters. Readings We shall read all or most of the following three books and a large number of articles, listed in the outline below. Delli Carpini, Michael X. and Scott Keeter What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nie, Norman H., Jane Junn, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry Education and Democratic Citizenship in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zaller, John R The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press. I Organizational (August 30) Outline II Political Sophistication, Knowledge, Misinformation, et al. A. Definition, Measurement, Distribution (September 6) Converse, Philip E The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics. In David Apter (ed.). Ideology and Discontent. New York: Basic Books. Luskin, Robert C Measuring Political Sophistication. American Journal of Political Science 31: Delli Carpini and Keeter, ch. 2. McGraw, Kathleen M. and Neil Pinney The Effects of General and Domain-Specific Expertise on Political Memory and Judgment. Social Cognition, 8: Converse, Philip E Assessing the Capacity of Mass Electorates. Annual Review of Polit-

3 3 ical Science 3: B. Hidden Knowledge? Veiled Ignorance? (September 13) Nadeau, Richard and Richard G. Niemi Educated Guesses: Survey Knowledge Questions. Public Opinion Quarterly, 59: Mondak Jeffrey Developing Valid Knowledge Scales. American Journal of Political Science, 45 (1): Mondak, Jeffery J., and Belinda Creel Davis Asked and Answered: Knowledge Levels When We Will Not Take Don't Know for an Answer. Political Behavior 23: Gibson, James L. and Gregory A. Caldeira Knowing the Supreme Court? A Reconsideration of Public Ignorance of the High Court. Journal of Politics, 71 (2): Prior, Markus and Arthur Lupia Money, Time, and Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Quick Recall and Political Learning Skills. American Journal of Political Science, 52 (1): Luskin, Robert C. and John G. Bullock. Don t Know Means Don t Know : DK Responses and the Public s Level of Political Knowledge. Journal of Politics, 73 (2011): Sturgis, Patrick and Patten Smith "Fictitious Issues Revisited: Political Interest, Knowledge and the Generation of Nonattitudes." Political Studies, forthcoming. Paulhus, Delroy L., P.D. Harms, M. Nadine Bruce, and Daria C. Lysy The Over- Claiming Technique: Measuring Self-Enhancement Independent of Ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84: C. Misinformation (September 20) Kull, S., Ramsay, C., and E. Lewis Misperceptions, the media, and the Iraq war. Political Science Quarterly, 118 (4): Shapiro, Robert Y. and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon Do The Facts Speak For Themselves? Partisan Disagreement As A Challenge to Democratic Competence. Critical Review, 20 (1 2): Kuklinski, James H., Paul J. Quirk, Jennifer Jerit, David Schweider, and Robert F. Rich. Misinformation and the Currency of Democratic Citizenship Journal of Politics 62: Nyhan, Brendan and Jason Reifler When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32: Sides, John What s So Amazing about Really Deep Thoughts? Cognitive Style and Po-

4 litical Misperceptions. Ms., Department of Political Science, George Washington University. Jerit, Jennifer and Jason Barabas Partisan Perceptual Bias and the Information Environment. Department of Political Science, Florida State University, Ms. 4 Gaines, Brian J., James H. Kuklinski, Paul J. Quirk, Buddy Peyton, and Jay Verkuilen Same Facts, Different Interpretations: Partisan Motivation and Opinion on Iraq. Journal of Politics, 69 (4): Jerit, Jennifer and Jason Barabas Bankrupt rhetoric: How misleading information affects knowledge about social security. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70(3), D. Cross-National and Longitudinal Variations (September 27) Delli Carpini and Keeter, ch. 3. Prior, Markus Political knowledge after September 11. PS Political Science and Politics, 35 (3): Andersen, Robert, James Tilley, and Anthony F. Heath Political knowledge and enlightened preferences: Party choice through the electoral cycle. British Journal of Political Science, 35: Baker, John R., Linda L.M. Bennett, Stephen E. Bennett, and Richard S. Flickinger Citizens' Knowledge and Perceptions of Legislatures in Canada, Britain and the United States Congress. Journal of Legislative Studies 2: Gordon, Stacy B., and Gary M. Segura Cross-National Variation in the Political Sophistication of Individuals: Capability or Choice? Journal of Politics 59: Bennett, Stephen E., Richard S. Flickinger, John R. Baker, Staci Rhine, and Linda L.M. Bennett Citizens Knowledge of Foreign Affairs. Press/Politics 1: Shanto Iyengar, Kyu S. Hahn, Heinz Bonfadelli, and Mirko Marr Dark Areas of Ignorance Revisited: Comparing International Affairs Knowledge in Switzerland and the US. Communication Research, 36 (3): E. Individual Differences (including the Gender Gap) (October 4) Delli Carpini and Keeter, ch. 4. Grönlund, Kimmo and Henry Milner. The Determinants of Political Knowledge in Comparative Perspective. Scandinavian Political Studies, 29 (4): Jerit, Jennifer Understanding the Knowledge Gap: The Role of Experts and Journalists. Journal of Politics, 71 (2):

5 5 Hambrick, Donald Z Why are some people more knowledgeable than others? A longitudinal study of knowledge acquisition. Memory & Cognition, 31: Verba, Sidney, Nancy Burns, and Kay Lehman Schlozman Knowing and Caring about Politics: Gender and Political Engagement. Journal of Politics 59 (November): Dow, Jay K "Gender Differences in Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Characteristics- Based and Returns-Based Differences." Political Behavior 31 (March): Frazer, Elizabeth, and Kenneth Macdonald "Sex Differences in Political Knowledge in Britain." Political Studies 51 (March): Hooghe, Marc, Ellen Quintelier, and Tim Reeskens "How Political Is the Personal? Gender Differences in the Level and the Structure of Political Knowledge." Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 28 (2): III Antecedents A. Education, Cognitive Ability, and Interest (October 11) Nie, Junn, and Stehlik-Barry, entire. Delli Carpini and Keeter, ch. 5. Luskin, Robert C Explaining Political Sophistication. Political Behavior, 12: Hauser, Seth M Education, ability, and civic engagement in the contemporary United States. Social Science Research, 29 (4): Gottfredson, Linda S Why g Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life. Intelligence 24: Luskin, Robert C. and Joseph C. Ten Barge Education, Intelligence and Political Sophistication. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April, 1995, Chicago, IL. B. Media Consumption (October 18) Jerit, Jennifer, Jason Barabas, and Toby Bolsen Citizens, Knowledge, and the Information Environment. American Journal of Political Science, 50 (2): Curran, James, Shanto Iyengar, Anker Brink Lund, and Inka Salovaara-Moring Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy: A Comparative Study. European Journal of Communication, 24; 5-26.

6 Eveland, W. P. and Dietram A. Scheufele Connecting News Media Use with Gaps in Knowledge and Participation. Political Communication, 17(3): Baum, Mathew Sex, Lies and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public. American Political Science Review 96 (March): Nadeau, Richard, Neil Nevitte, Elisabeth Gidengil, and André Blais Election Campaigns as Information Campaigns: Who Learns What and Does it Matter? Political Communication, 25: McCann, James A. and Chappell Lawson Presidential Campaigns and the Knowledge Gap in Three Transitional Democracies. Political Research Quarterly, 59, (1): Prior, Markus News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout. American Journal of Political Science, 49 (3): Baek, Young Minand Magdalena E. Wojcieszak. Don t Expect Too Much! Learning From Late- Night Comedy and Knowledge Item Difficulty. Communication Research, 36(6): Barabas, Jason and Jennifer Jerit Estimating the Causal Effects of Media Coverage on Policy-Specific Knowledge. American Journal of Political Science, 53 (1): C. Discussion and Deliberation (October 25) Luskin, Robert C., James S. Fishkin, and Roger Jowell Considered Opinions: Deliberative Polling in the U.K. British Journal of Political Science, 32 (July): Andersen, Vibeke Normann & Kasper M. Hansen How deliberation makes better citizens: The Danish Deliberative Poll on the euro. European Journal of Political Research 46: Gastil, John, Laura Black, and Kara Moscovitz Ideology, Attitude Change, and Deliberation in Small Face-to-Face Groups. Political Communication, 25:1, Lupia, Arthur Deliberation Disconnected: What it Takes to Improve Civic Competence. Law and Contemporary Problems, 65: Ahn, T. K., Robert Huckfeldt, and John Barry Ryan Communication, Influence, and Informational Asymmetries among Voters. Political Psychology, 31 (5): List, Christian, Robert C. Luskin, James S. Fishkin, and Iain McLean Deliberation, Single-Peakedness, and the Possibility of Meaningful Democracy: Evidence from Deliberative Polls, ms. London School of Economics, London, UK. Searing, Donald D., Frederick Solt, Pamela Johnston Conover, and Ivor Crewe Public Discussion in the Deliberative System: Does It Make Better Citizens? British Journal of Political Science, 37:

7 7 Bennett, Stephen E., Richard S. Flickinger and Staci L. Rhine Political Talk Over Here, Over There, Over Time. British Journal of Political Science, 30: Luskin, Robert C., James S. Fishkin, and Iyengar, Shanto. Considered Opinions on U.S. Foreign Policy: Evidence from Face-to-Face and Online Deliberative Polling, presented at the Princeton Conference on Deliberative Democracy, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, March 9-11, IV Effects A. Does It Matter? (November 1) Lupia, Arthur Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections. American Political Science Review, 88 (1): Ansolabehere, Stephen, Jonathan Rodden And James M. Snyder The Strength of Issues: Using Multiple Measures to Gauge Preference Stability, Ideological Constraint, and Issue Voting. American Political Science Review, 102 (2): Luskin, Robert C From Denial to Extenuation (and Finally beyond): Political Sophistication and Citizen Competence. In James H. Kuklinski (ed.), Political Psychology and Political Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press. Luskin, Robert C The Heavenly Public: What Would the Ideal Democratic Citizenry Be Like? In George Rabinowitz and Michael B. MacKuen (eds.), Electoral Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming. Lupia, Arthur How elitism undermines the study of voter competence. Critical Review, 18 (1-3): Druckman, James N Does Political Information Matter? Political Communication, 22: Kinder, Donald R Belief Systems Today. Critical Review, 18 (1-3): Converse, Philip E Democratic theory and electoral reality. Critical Review,18 (1): B. Policy Preferences (November 8) Delli Carpini and Keeter, chs. 1, 6. Althaus, Scott L Information Effects in Collective Preferences. American Political Science Review 92:

8 Gilens, Martin Political ignorance and collective policy preferences. American Political Science Review, 95 (2): Bartels, Larry M. Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind. Perspectives on Politics, 3 (1): Lupia, Arthur, Adam Seth Levine, Jesse O. Menning, and Gisela Sin Were Bush Tax Cut Supporters Simply Ignorant? A Second Look at Conservatives and Liberals in Homer Gets a Tax Cut. Perspectives on Politics, Bartels, Larry M Homer Gets a Warm Hug: A Note on Ignorance and Extenuation. Perspectives on Politics, 5 (4): Berinsky, Adam J Silent Voices: Social Welfare Policy Opinions and Political Equality in America. American Journal of Political Science, 46 (2): Enns, Peter K. and Paul M. Kellstedt Policy Mood and Political Sophistication: Why Everybody Moves Mood. Journal of Political Science, 38(3): Sturgis, Patrick Knowledge and Collective Preferences: A Comparison of Two Approaches to Estimating the Opinions of a Better Informed Public. Sociological Methods and Research, 31; C. Reasoning and Information-Processing (November 15) Zaller, chs Evans, Jonathan St. B. T Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59: Lodge, Milton, Marco Steenbergen, and Shawn Brau The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation. American Political Science Review 89: Kuklinski, James H. and Paul Quirk Reconsidering the Rational Public: Cognition, Heuristics, and Mass Opinion. In Lupia, McCubbins, and Popkin. Lau, Richard R. and David P. Redlawsk Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive heuristics in political decision making. American Journal of Political Science 45 (4): Stapel, Diederik A. and Willem Koomen How Far Do We Go beyond the Information Given? The Impact of Knowledge Activation on Interpretation and Inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1): Fabrigar, Leandre R.; Petty, Richard E.; Smith, Steven M.; Crites Jr., Stephen L Understanding knowledge effects on attitude-behavior consistency: The role of relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4):

9 9 D. Extremity and Ideology (November 22) Judd, Charles M. and Cynthia M. Lusk Knowledge Structures And Evaluative Judgments - Effects Of Structural Variables On Judgmental Extremity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46 (6): Van Hiel, Alain and Ivan Mervielde The Measurement of Cognitive Cmplexity and Its Relationship With Political Extremism. Political Psychology, 24 (4): Federico, Christopher M Predicting Attitude Extremity: The Interactive Effects of Schema Development and the Need to Evaluate and Their Mediation by Evaluative Integration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30 (10): Jost, John T., Christopher M. Federico, and Jaime L. Napier Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions, and Elective Affinities. Annual Review of Psychology, 60: Jost, John T., Jaime L. Napier, Hulda Thorisdottir, Samuel D. Gosling, Tibor P. Palfai, and Brian Ostafin Are needs to manage uncertainty and threat associated with political conservatism or ideological extremity? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33: Thorisdottir, Hulda, John T. Jost, Ido Liviatan, and Patrick E. Shrout Psychological needs and values underlying left-right political orientation: Cross-national evidence from Eastern and Western Europe. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71: Jost, John T., Brian A. Nosek, and Samuel D. Gosling Ideology: Its Resurgence in Social, Personality, and Political Psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3 (2): Conover, Pamela J. and Stanley Feldman The Origins And Meaning Of Liberal- Conservative Self-Identifications. American Journal of Political Science, 25: E. Voting and Elections (November 29) Bartels, Larry M Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections. American Journal of Political Science, 40: Lau, Richard R., David J. Andersen, and David P. Redlawsk An Exploration of Correct Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections. American Journal of Political Science, 52 (2): Blais, André, Elisabeth Gidengil, Patrick Fournier, and Neil Nevitte Information, visibility and elections: Why electoral outcomes differ when voters are better informed. European Journal of Political Research 48: Barker, David C. and Susan B. Hansen. All Things Considered: Systematic Cognitive Pro-

10 cessing and Electoral Decision-making. Journal of Politics, 67 (2): Duch, Raymond M Developmental Model of Heterogeneous Economic Voting in New Democracies. American Political Science Review, 95(4): Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels Blind Retrospection: Electoral Responses to Drought, Flu, and Shark Attacks. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, September Christin, Thomas, Simon Hug, and Pascal Sciarini Interests and Information in Referendum Voting. An Analysis of Swiss Voters. European Journal of Political Research 41 (6): Hobolt, Sara Binzer Taking Cues on Europe? Voter competence and party endorsements in referendums on European integration. European Journal of Political Research, 46: Luskin, Robert C. and Suzanne Globetti Candidate versus Policy Considerations in the Voting Decision: The Role of Political Sophistication, unpublished manuscript, Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin, TX Lusk, Cynthia M. and Charles M. Judd Political Expertise and the Structural Mediators of Candidate Evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 24: Assignments and Evaluation Paper. The primary written assignment will be the paper, which should in most cases be empirical, though it need not be statistically imposing. Non-empirical theoretical or methodological papers are possible but should be cleared with me in advance. Your topic may concern the U.S., specific other countries, comparisons across countries, or general psychological mechanisms, as suits your interests. Most of you will presumably draw on one or more archived datasets available from the ICPSR or other archives around the world. I encourage you to consult with me about your choice of topic and data and about other questions relating to your paper as necessary. I shall also arrange for statistical computing tutorials as necessary. The papers should be ed to me as Word attachments by 9:00 a.m., Friday, November 2. Short Essays. Students will also compose weekly short essays of no more than two single-spaced typed pages apiece. These should center on the week's readings and culminate in a question suitable for class discussion. (Veterans of my courses will be familiar with the device.) The questions and their preambles should express some interesting criticism, extrapolation, speculation, or juxtaposition. They may be genuinely interrogatory, but may as usefully be rhetorical or argumentative. Among other possibilities, you may wish to call attention to internal contradictions or to inconsistencies with other authors or other evidence, challenge the adequacy of measurement, question whether the results support the interpretation, indicate ways in which

11 11 the results may not generalize to other settings or circumstances, point to variables that may have been omitted, or suggest ways in which the argument or results have implications for other, perhaps broader questions. The ideal question might be the germ of an eventual paper or perhaps even a dissertation. The essays should be ed as Word attachments by class day at 10:00 a.m. Final Grade. The short essays will count for 30% combined, class participation for 20%, and the paper for 50%. The penalty for lateness, on both the short essays and the term paper, is 3 points (on the customary 100-point scale) per twenty-four hours. NOTE: Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, ,