Local Political Knowledge and Assessments of Citizen Competence

This article contrasts the national and local political knowledge of a random sample of 1001 Philadelphians with the aim of enhancing the scholarly understanding of citizen competence. Empirical study of citizen competence extends back more than 50 years, but the survey data that have been brought to bear upon the topic are almost exclusively focused on national-level politics. Consequently, sweeping conclusions about the competence of the American public have often been grounded in a fairly narrow empirical trench. The comparison in this article depicts a slew of differences in the distribution of knowledge across national and local politics, many of which challenge established notions of who is politically knowledgeable. This, in turn, has implications for which members of society are seen as politically competent and how competent the public as a whole is thought to be. Lee Shaker, Portland State University Support for this study was provided by Michael X. Delli Carpini and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. In addition, the author wishes to thank Eran N. Ben Porath and Martin Gilens for their time and contributions. 2 Local Political Knowledge and Citizen Competence 3 Local Political Knowledge and Citizen Competence For decades, scholars have drawn a dark picture of the American public’s understanding of political affairs (Converse 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Somin 1998, 2004). Doing so raises fundamental questions about the citizenry’s ability to effectively contribute to its governance. Yet, even though citizens are not as informed as they could be, American democracy functions. The study of citizen competence grapples with this paradox: How can a government be legitimately of the people if the people barely know the political basics? Scholars offer an array of responses. Democracy functions because citizens follow elite cues, are only responsible for making narrowly constrained choices, and form a coherent mass in the aggregate (Page and Shapiro 1992; Popkin 1993; Sniderman et al. 1991). Though the direct reward (a more informed vote) for accumulating political knowledge is small, enough citizens seek political information (for various reasons) to form a basis for governance (Somin 2006). Modern empirical attempts to address the citizen competence controversy extend back more than 50 years, but the survey data that have been brought to bear upon the topic are almost exclusively focused on national-level politics. A smattering of cross-national comparisons of national-level data exist, but there are limits to what may be generalized about a complex matter – citizen competence – from data that largely relate to one political context. There are two compelling reasons to include local political affairs in the study of citizen competence. First, any understanding of competence that does not include local matters is incomplete. To put it starkly, 96% of all political contests in the United States are for local offices (Macedo and Karpowitz 1 The primary exception to this appraisal is Delli Carpini and Keeter's (1996) overarching assessment of political knowledge, in which state and local political knowledge are briefly described. 4 Local Political Knowledge and Citizen Competence 2006). Second, including local affairs offers the possibility of identifying political competence that is not apparent (or does not exist) at the national level. Thoroughly studying local politics is difficult because of the variability of local contexts and the generalizability issues that stem from such differences, but it is a worthwhile pursuit nonetheless. To address this empirical lacuna, this article offers a case study that contrasts the national and local political knowledge of a single population: a random sample of the residents of Philadelphia. The results suggest that the citizens who are knowledgeable about national and local matters differ, and this has implications for assessments of the public's political competence. Citizen Competence and Political Knowledge The prior research most pertinent to this article investigates the level and distribution of political knowledge throughout the American populace (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Neumann 1986). Three relevant conclusions can be drawn from this line of work: (1) the level of political knowledge throughout the American public is not high, (2) there are some instances and circumstances in which the public is informed, (3) if any Americans appear more knowledgeable, and thus politically competent, they are likely white, wealthy, educated, men who are middle-aged. Though it should be noted that knowledge is not competence in and of itself (Bennett 1997); Lupia 2006), the established view is that a low level of knowledge is indicative of political incompetence (Somin 1998, 2004; Bennett 1988, 1996). So, one 2 The argument that the measurement of knowledge levels with survey items is a poor proxy for evaluating citizen competence (Weissberg 2001) is compelling, but not entirely relevant to this article. Survey-based political knowledge scales are not complete and total representations of competence. But, the limitations of such scales are 5 Local Political Knowledge and Citizen Competence interpretation of prior political knowledge research is that many, if not most, citizens are not politically competent and that this is especially true of women, minorities, and those with lower socioeconomic status. Skepticism about widespread citizen competence peaks in research that identifies a group of citizens termed “know-nothings” which responds to political queries correctly less than onethird of the time (Hyman and Sheatsley 1947). Estimates place the size of this group at roughly one-third of the population and are based on questions about national politics (Bennett 1988; Somin 1998). It is suggested that these know-nothings “are not mentally prepared to continue the society because they basically do not understand the society enough to value it...People who do not value what they have rarely keep it for long" (Stein 1983, p.19 in Bennett 1988, p. 489). Drawing this conclusion solely on the basis of national-level measurements, however, is premature and may be misleading. Though limited in depth, literature focused on local political knowledge hints at the possibility that many citizens who possess little national political knowledge may be more focused on local affairs. In several disparate studies, women were more likely to know the name of the person in charge of their local schools (Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997). Bobo and Gilliam (1990) find black citizens to be more knowledgeable when they have a black mayor. Similarly, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) found that black citizens in Richmond, VA had higher levels of local knowledge than white citizens (but lower levels of national knowledge) even constant across political contexts. Consequently, the raison d’etre of this article – to evaluate the implications of differences observed in the comparison of citizens’ knowledge of local and national politics is not mooted by these