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Relationships between feelings of political competence & cumulative media use in 5 Western nations--the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, & Mexico--were examined. Data from an earlier study by G. A. Almond & S. Verba (THE CIVIC CULTURE: POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND DEMOCRACY IN FIVE NATIONS, Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1963) was reexamined relating media usage to 'political competence' & 'subjective competence'. The original data, 1,000 interviews from each country, were collected in 1959 & 1960. The current study devised a 'mass media index' as a gross measure of media used to follow public affairs. X2's were used as a measure for statistical significance & gamma was used as a uniform measure of association. Correlations on 25 points relating to subjective & political competence were measured for each country. Wide differentiation among the nations studied suggests that multivariate analysis is needed to establish whether media usage makes a unique contribution to feelings of political competence or acts as a surrogate for other variables. 1 Table. S. Lupton.

Abstract
This paper provides causal evidence on how political parties can sway voters at scale in nascent electoral democracies. We collect novel data on expressway construction by the Justice and Development Party in Turkey and use province-by-year variation in construction to show that votes for the Justice and Development Party increased in response to the expressways. The estimates imply that the expressways increased the Justice and Development Party's vote share by 4.8 percentage points—a third of the increase from 2002 to 2011. We provide evidence that the visibility and competence signalled by the expressway expansion, and not increased local economic growth, drove increased vote shares.

"Heuristics and Biases in Political Decision Making" published on by Oxford University Press.

The study of voter competence has made significant contributions to our understanding of politics, but at this point there are diminishing returns to the endeavor. There is little reason, in theory or in practice, to expect voter competence to improve dramatically enough to make much of a difference, but there is reason to think that officials' competence can vary enough to make large differences. To understand variations in government performance, therefore, we would do better to focus on the abilities and performance of officials, not ordinary citizens. Adapted from the source document.

This article presents a generalization of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. All results to date assume a fixed value for the competence of jurors, or alternatively, a fixed probability distribution over the possible competences of jurors. In this article, we develop the idea that we can learn the competence of the jurors by the jury vote. We assume a uniform prior probability assignment over the competence parameter, and we adapt this assignment in the light of the jury vote. We then compute the posterior probability, conditional on the jury vote, of the hypothesis voted over. We thereby retain the central results of Condorcet, but we also show that the posterior probability depends on the size of the jury as well as on the absolute margin of the majority.

AbstractThis article develops the reward‐punishment issue model of voting using a newly collated aggregate measure of issue competence in Britain between 1971 and 1997, revealing systematic differences between governing and opposition parties in the way citizens' evaluations of party competence are related to vote intention. Using monthly Gallup 'best party to handle the most important problem' and vote intention data, time series Granger‐causation tests give support to a classic issue reward‐punishment model for incumbents. However, for opposition parties this reward‐punishment model does not hold: macro‐issue competence evaluations are Granger‐caused by changes in vote choice or governing party competence. An explanation is offered based upon the differentiating role of policy performance and informational asymmetries, and the implications are considered for comparative studies of voting, public opinion and for political party competition.

This article presents a generalization of the Condorcet Jury Theorem. All results to date assume a fixed value for the competence of jurors, or alternatively, a fixed probability distribution over the possible competences of jurors. In this article, we develop the idea that we can learn the competence of the jurors by the jury vote. We assume a uniform prior probability assignment over the competence parameter, and we adapt this assignment in the light of the jury vote. We then compute the posterior probability, conditional on the jury vote, of the hypothesis voted over. We thereby retain the central results of Condorcet, but we also show that the posterior probability depends on the size of the jury as well as on the absolute margin of the majority. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

European political elites are faced with a loss of trust and the emergence of a growing number of sometimes rather obscure new political movements. How is this to be explained? What is the relationship between the logic that guides political attitudes of constituencies and the logic of political actors whose legitimacy is rooted in electoral choice of the constituencies? In this essay we approach this question from a systemic perspective, regarding this relationship as a problem solving feedback cycle. Classical approaches, such as the median voter theorem, view political actors as passively mirroring voters' preferences. An alternative approach that we suggest, assumes that the perception of competences of political actors on the part of constituencies is key in the sense that it does not only reflect voters' preferences, but it is also manipulable through the agency of political actors themselves. More generally, we argue that the perception of competence is socially constructed and contextually dependent.

This article develops the reward-punishment issue model of voting using a newly collated aggregate measure of issue competence in Britain between 1971 and 1997, revealing systematic differences between governing and opposition parties in the way citizens' evaluations of party competence are related to vote intention. Using monthly Gallup "best party to handle the most important problem" and vote intention data, time series Granger-causation tests give support to a classic issue reward-punishment model for incumbents. However, for opposition parties this reward-punishment model does not hold: macro-issue competence evaluations are Granger-caused by changes in vote choice or governing party competence. An explanation is offered based upon the differentiating role of policy performance and informational asymmetries, and the implications are considered for comparative studies of voting, public opinion and for political party competition. Adapted from the source document.

Are citizens willing to tolerate violations of democratic rules and norms by competent political leaders? I examine this question employing well-powered conjoint experiments in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and South Korea. The findings yield good as well as bad news for democracy. I find that undemocratic behavior by political candidates decreases voter support, whereas candidate competence increases support. Contrary to expectations, the effects of undemocratic behavior and competence do not interact. This means that competent candidates are sanctioned for violating democratic principles but also that support for undemocratic candidates increases with their competence. These findings can help explain the successes and failures of undemocratic political leaders around the world: although these leaders can gain support by appearing to be competent, competence does not make citizens tolerate undemocratic behavior entirely.

Conceptual problems and solutions -- Concepts of issue competence -- Explaining issue ownership change -- Government performance and oppositions -- Generalised competence and the costs of governing -- Ownership, performance, generalised competence and the vote.