PSC 436 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Economic Evaluation, Eurobarometer, Party System
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These conclusions are unwarranted (various reasons why--from flawed research to overlooking information that voters do have and use) Demonstrate that individual levels of sophistication are the product of choices that are driven by a contextual incentive structure. Converse argued has four components: range of opinions, amount of info, attitude consistency, level of conceptualization . (hard to measure--does an individual process and organize info at a high level?) Lack of sophistication doesn"t necessarily mean an inherent weakness of the mass public, could be due to contextual factors about the nation and its institutions. Goal of article: develop a measure of sophistication that is reliable/valid across polities, but does not artificially constrain cross-polity variance. Data: 1989 euro-barometer post-election survey that measures political sophistication in the. Assess the extent to which we can have confidence in the subjective measures of economic performance employed in voting models. Concern is that survey design effects have consequences for respondents" subjective o economic evaluations.