Political Information Acquisition for Social Exchange

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.

Suggested Citation

Gani Aldashev (2010), "Political Information Acquisition for Social Exchange", Quarterly Journal of Political Science: Vol. 5: No. 1, pp 1-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00009009