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Political Information Acquisition for Social Exchange

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  • Aldashev, Gani

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

  • Aldashev, Gani, 2010. "Political Information Acquisition for Social Exchange," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00009009
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00009009
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    Cited by:

    1. Valentino Larcinese, 2009. "Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence From Britain," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 237-276, April.
    2. Karamychev, Vladimir A. & Swank, Otto H., 2022. "A social image theory of information acquisition, opinion formation, and voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Couttenier, Mathieu & Hatte, Sophie, 2016. "Mass media effects on non-governmental organizations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 57-72.
    4. Christian Bruns, 2013. "Elections and Market Provision of Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 4091, CESifo.
    5. Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 387-411, June.
    6. R. Aytimur & Aristotelis Boukouras & Robert Schwager, 2014. "Voting as a signaling device," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(3), pages 753-777, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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