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A half century of research shows that most citizens are shockingly
uninformed about public affairs, liberal-conservative ideologies,
and the issues of the day. This has led most scholars to condemn
typical American voters as politically brainless and to conclude
that policy voting lies beyond their reach. On Voter Competence
breaks sharply from this view. According to Paul Goren, people vote
based on abstract policy principles, a practice that has escaped
scholars because they have searched for evidence of policy voting
in the wrong places. Once we turn away from liberal-conservative
predispositions and issue preferences, we find that nearly everyone
holds genuine policy principles and uses these to guide their votes
on election day.
Three key principles divide the Democratic and Republican parties:
limited government, traditional morality, and military strength.
Deftly integrating research in social and political history, social
and political psychology, and electoral behavior, Goren argues that
nearly all citizens keep these principles in mind. The principles
function as central heuristics in their belief systems, are rooted
deeply in basic human values, and guide presidential choice to a
similar degree for voters across the sophistication spectrum.
Goren's comprehensive analysis of opinion data from the past six
presidential elections and several new national surveys yields
unequivocal support for these claims.
Contrary to the indictment leveled by most of the scholarly
community and political pundits more generally, ordinary citizens
who are neither deeply knowledgeable nor engaged with the world of
public affairs prove as adept as their more sophisticated
counterparts in grounding presidential votes in abstract views
about public policy. Insofar as citizen competence can be equated
with the development and use of bedrock principles, the American
voter performs far better than has been recognized in the past.
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