Putting the Political in Political Interest: The Conditional Effect of Politics on Citizens’ Interest in Politics
Date
2022-11-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Politics Research
Abstract
Given that political interest is one of the best predictors of political participation, it remains curious that the causes of interest are undertheorized and understudied. Notably absent from much of the research on political interest is an exploration of how variations in the nature of politics itself might have an impact on individual-level political interest. We develop a theory and a set of testable predictions about how partisanship interacts with the presence of a presidential (vs. midterm) election, the party of the sitting president, and elite polarization, to affect political interest. We report multilevel models that use ANES measures of political interest and partisanship and the DW-NOMINATE Senate polarization measure (from 1960 to 2008) and discuss the implications of our findings for the long-term prospects of an interested electorate.
Description
This is the Accepted Manuscript version of Miller, J. M., Peterson, D. A. M., Saunders, K. L., & McClurg, S. D. (2022). Putting the Political in Political Interest: The Conditional Effect of Politics on Citizens’ Interest in Politics. American Politics Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221139757. This article was originally published in American Politics Research. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221139757. Copyright © The Author(s) 2022.
Keywords
political interest, partisanship, elite polarization
Citation
Miller, J. M., Peterson, D. A. M., Saunders, K. L., & McClurg, S. D. (2022). Putting the Political in Political Interest: The Conditional Effect of Politics on Citizens’ Interest in Politics. American Politics Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221139757