Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Political Behavior
Published in: Political Behavior 4/2023

27-06-2022 | Original Paper

Knowledge of Social Rights as Political Knowledge

Authors: Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, Matthew S. Winters

Published in: Political Behavior | Issue 4/2023

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

Conventional measures of political knowledge assess citizens’ familiarity with institutions, political parties, and political actors at the national level. We argue that other types of political knowledge are also important to democratic citizenship. We focus on knowledge about social rights (i.e., government guarantees that predominantly concern material well-being). We develop a new systemized concept that we call knowledge of social rights (KSR) and argue that KSR is particularly important in lower and middle-income countries. Using original survey data from Argentina, Brazil, Malawi, and Pakistan and secondary survey data from the Afrobarometer, we show ways in which KSR is empirically distinct from political knowledge as traditionally measured. The established correlates of conventional political knowledge in the United States also predict political knowledge in the contexts we examine. In contrast, these relationships are attenuated or in some cases reversed when we examine knowledge of social rights as an outcome. These results contribute to a growing literature that highlights the diverse areas of citizen knowledge that are relevant for contemporary politics. Our findings also point to the need for more research on forms of political knowledge outside the long-standing wealthy democracies.
previous article Neural Bases of Sector Bias in Perceptions of Public Versus Private-Sector Service Performance
next article Timing Matters: How Adolescent Police Contact Shapes Political Lives

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Delli Carpini and Keeter define political knowledge as “the range of factual knowledge about politics that is stored in long-term memory” (1996, 10). The most common measurement strategy builds on the question battery recommended by those authors in their influential article (1993) and book (1996). In their 1993 article, they suggest a battery of questions that asks respondents to identify (1) the vice-president, (2) the party that holds the majority in the House of Representatives, (3) the relative ideological location of the two dominant U.S. political parties, (4) the percentage of votes needed to override a veto, and (5) which institution has the power of judicial review.
 
2
In many cases, even critics of common political knowledge measures accept the fundamental validity of the dominant approach and suggest modifications to it, such as changing how “don’t know” responses are analyzed (Mondak 2001; Mondak and Davis 2001) or increasing survey respondents’ motivation to expend effort on answering questions (e.g., Prior and Lupia 2008). See Cramer and Toff (2017) for a critique of typical conceptualizations of citizen competence in the United States that focus on the mastery of political facts.
 
3
Stolle and Gidengil’s observation that there has been “remarkably little study of the public’s knowledge of government services and benefits” remains true a decade later (Stolle and Gidengil 2010, 95); other exceptions include Cohen and Luttig (2019) and Miller (2019).
 
4
In this definition, social rights vary across countries, depending on the content of a country’s constitution and legislation. This approach makes sense for the study of individual-level variation in knowledge of social rights and access to government benefits. Normative work, including Sen’s influential work on the “capabilities” approach (1980), approaches social rights from a universalistic perspective.
 
5
Constitutions differ as to whether these rights are considered “aspirational” or “judiciable,” and some constitutions include rights of both types. See the discussion in Jung et al. (2014).
 
6
We exclude from our definition citizens’ micro-level operational knowledge of how to access specific social programs. In this sense, we differ from work that focuses on citizen “know-how” (Kruks-Wisner 2018; Rizzo 2019). While knowing details like the precise forms that need to be brought to a particular office helps to navigate complex social service bureaucracies, we focus on a more general knowledge of social rights in defining KSR. Subsequent research could examine whether higher levels of KSR increases the likelihood that individuals acquire program-specific knowledge. From the existing literature, our proposed measurement of KSR is closest to Stolle and Gidengil’s (2010) “Practical Political Knowledge Scale” and Miller’s (2019) “Programmatic Political Knowledge Index.” Although there are points of overlap, neither of those indices includes questions on more abstract social rights or constitutional guarantees, and these alternative indices include some operational policy-level questions—like the cost of a mammogram or the meaning of “Common Core”—which we exclude from KSR.
 
7
Although we argue that KSR should be especially important for the exercise of social rights in lower and middle-income countries, it may of course be important in wealthy democracies, as well. For example, there is ample evidence on the importance of knowledge and information for access to social benefits in the United States (e.g. Michener 2018; Soss 2002).
 
8
We believe PK and KSR are relevant in polities with meaningfully competitive elections, even if they do not meet all criteria for a democracy. The four countries in which we carry out original survey data all have Polity IV scores of 6 or higher for the most recent year data is reported (2018).
 
9
This is analogous to the phenomenon of “policy feedback,” mostly examined in wealthy democracies, wherein the design and implementation of government policy influences subsequent citizen demands and forms of participation (e.g., Campbell 2012; Mettler and Soss 2004; Pierson 1993).
 
10
Kruks-Wisner (2018) contrasts intermediate social welfare states with advanced welfare states, failed states, and predatory states.
 
11
As Hunter and Brill (2016, 193) point out, the possibility that effective mass exercise of social rights precedes effective exercise of civil and political rights inverts Marshall’s classic depiction of the evolution of citizenship rights.
 
12
Using data from 2012, they show substantial variation across regions, with fewer than 40% of births registered in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and above 70% in East Asia and Latin America.
 
13
Though these differences in knowledge are remarkably persistent, there is also ample evidence that the extent of these differences varies with the subject matter covered in questions, the propensity to guess, the race of the interviewer, and question wording and formatting (e.g., Barabas et al., 2014; Boudreau and Lupia 2011; Dolan 2011; Hutchings 2001; M. K. Miller 2019; Mondak 1999, 2001; Mondak and Anderson 2004; Mondak and Davis 2001; Prior 2014).
 
14
Higher levels of education may also make it easier to navigate a complex social welfare bureaucracy, although this may be an example of policy “know-how” rather than knowledge of rights. Recent work demonstrates this in contexts as distinct as rural Mexico (Rizzo 2019) and the United States (Michener 2018).
 
15
Villarreal and Silva (2006, 1726–27) summarize the debate in the literature on the relationship between income and the density of social ties; most of the literature draws on data from the United States and the United Kingdom.
 
16
As Stolle and Gidengil write, “[W]omen’s practical knowledge about government services and programs could potentially offset their disadvantage when it comes to more conventional forms of political knowledge” (Stolle and Gidengil 2010, 93).
 
17
Qualitative research in the United States shows the importance of social networks and the state itself as a source of information about social programs there, as well (Michener 2018; Soss 2002).
 
18
Similarly, Weaver et al. (2019) use innovative conversational “portals” to illustrate how experiences with state agents (especially police) generate concrete knowledge of the state’s penal face among Black Americans and how citizens use that knowledge in an attempt to protect themselves from state predation.
 
19
All four countries have Polity scores of 6 or above, widely considered the threshold for a democracy.
 
20
There is a large literature on the nature of social welfare benefit distribution in Argentina (e.g., Auyero 2012; Weitz-Shapiro 2014) and Brazil (e.g., Hunter and Sugiyama 2014; Nichter 2018). A more recent literature documents the uneven nature and difficulties in accessing government funded social goods in Pakistan (e.g., Gul 2021; Jamil and Dawani 2020) and Malawi (C. M. Miller, Tsoka, and Reichert 2011; Mussa and Masanjala 2015).
 
21
The Supplementary Information file provides additional details about question wording, answer choices, and survey administration, as well as basic statistics about answer responses.
 
22
SES is measured as a 16-category household income variable. Education ranges from 0 (no school) to 7 (post-graduate education). Age and questions on minors in the household were unfortunately omitted from the survey.
 
23
A simulation-based test lets us reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the coefficient on “female” in the PK equation and the coefficient on the same variable in the KSR equation.
 
24
For all of SES, education, female, and minor children, simulation-based tests allow us to reject the null hypothesis that the coefficients in the PK and KSR regressions are equal.
 
25
We placed our questions on political knowledge and knowledge of social rights on a larger survey run by Rehan Jamil (Brown University) in partnership with the Pakistan Institute for Development Economics (PIDE) that exploits poverty scores assigned a few year years prior to the survey to develop a regression discontinuity design that compares households that barely missed and barely met the cut-off of eligibility for the BISP cash transfer program in four districts located in two Pakistani provinces. See Iudice and Jamil (2022) for an in-depth description of the survey. Given the relatively homogenous economic conditions of this surveyed population (all were from households with similar values on a poverty index), we do not include a measure of SES in these regression. In the SI file, we show results where we include a control for whether or not respondents were BISP beneficiaries; results for other predictors are unchanged.
 
26
Given very low levels of educational attainment among this population, we measure education in this sample with a 0–1 variable. See the SI file for more details.
 
27
Once again, a simulation-based test lets us reject the null hypothesis that the two coefficient estimates are equal for both gender and minor children.
 
28
We placed our questions on the endline survey of a project studying the effects of a door-to-door information campaign on tax morale. See Grady et al. (2022) for more information on the survey.
 
29
In addition to the limitations of the KSR questions, both have just two answer options, whereas all five PK questions are open response. This is another reason to treat these results with caution.
 
30
Coding rules and summary statistics for all variables can be found in the appendix.
 
31
Simulation-based tests let us reject the null hypothesis of equivalence for the coefficients on the education, female, and children at home variables.
 
32
Supplementary Information File part B presents the results for each country graphically.
 
33
In Ghana and Madagascar, women have statistically significantly lower levels of KSR than men.
 
Literature
Althaus, S. L. (1998). Information effects in collective preferences. American Political Science Review, 92(3), 545–558.
Althaus, S. L. (2003). Collective preferences in democratic politics: Opinion surveys and the will of the people. Cambridge University Press.
Auyero, J. (2012). Patients of the state. The politics of waiting in Argentina. Duke Unversity Press.
Barabas, J., Jerit, J., Pollock, W., & Rainey, C. (2014). The Question(s) of political knowledge. American Political Science Review, 108(4), 840–855.
Bellamy, R. (2008). Citizenship: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Boudreau, C., & Lupia, A. (2011). Political Knowledge. In J. N. Druckman, D. P. Green, J. H. Kuklinski, & A. Lupia (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of experimental political science (pp. 171–183). Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, A. L. (2012). Policy makes mass politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 15(1), 333–351.
Carpini, D., Michael, X., & Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. Yale University Press.
Cohen, C. J., & Luttig, M. D. (2019). Reconceptualizing political knowledge: Race, ethnicity, and carceral violence. Perspectives on Politics, 18(3), 1–14.
Chilton, A., & Versteeg, M. (2017). Rights without resources: The impact of constitutional social rights on social spending. The Journal of Law and Economics, 60(4), 713–748.
Cramer, K. J., & Toff, B. (2017). The fact of experience: Rethinking political knowledge and civic competence. Perspectives on Politics, 15(03), 754–770.
De, R. (2018). A people’s constitution: The everyday life of law in the Indian Republic. Princeton University Press.
Dolan, K. (2011). Do women and men know different things? Measuring gender differences in political knowledge. Journal of Politics, 73(1), 97–107.
Fraile, M., & Gomez, R. (2017). Why does Alejandro know more about politics than Catalina? Explaining the Latin American gender gap in political knowledge. British Journal of Political Science, 47(1), 91–112.
Gargarella, R. (2010). Grafting social rights onto hostile constitutions. Texas Law Review, 89, 1537–1555
Gauri, V., & Brinks, D. M. (2008). Courting social justice: Judicial enforcement of social and economic rights in the developing world. Cambridge University Press.
Gomez, B. T., & Matthew Wilson, J. (2001). Political sophistication and economic voting in the American electorate: A theory of heterogeneous attribution. American Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 899.
Grady, Christopher et al. (2022). The limits of information as a tool to increase tax compliance: Results from an information campaign in the context of a service delivery shock in Malawi. University of Illinois. Working Paper
Gul, S. (2021). A social protection profile of Pakistan. Building an inclusive social protection system. International Labour Organization.
Heath, A., Fisher, S., & Smith, S. (2005). The globalization of public opinion research. Annual Review of Political Science, 8(1), 297–333.
Hunter, W., & Brill, R. (2016). ‘Documents, please’: advances in social protection and birth certification in the developing world. World Politics, 68(2), 191–228.
Hunter, W., & Sugiyama, N. B. (2014). Transforming subjects into citizens: Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família. Perspectives on Politics, 12(4), 829–845.
Hutchings, V. L. (2001). Political context, issue salience, and selective attentiveness: Constituent knowledge of the Clarence Thomas confirmation vote. Journal of Politics, 63(3), 846–868.
Iudice, M., & Jamil R. R. (2022). Poverty Targeted Cash Transfers and Attitudes Towards Redistributive Policies. Brown University. Working paper
Jung, C., Hirschl, R., & Rosevear, E. (2014). Economic and social rights in national constitutions. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 62(4), 1043–1094.
Kittilson, M. C., & Schwindt-Bayer, L. A. (2012). The Gendered Effects of Electoral Institutions: Political Engagement and Participation. Oxford University Press.
Kruks-Wisner, G. (2018). Claiming the State: Active citizenship and social welfare in rural India. Cambridge University Press.
Lomnitz, L. A. (2014). Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican shantytown. Academic Press.
Lupia, A. (2016). Uninformed: Why people know so little about politics and what we can do about it. Oxford University Press.
Marshall, T. H. (2009). Citizenship and social class. In J. Manza & M. Saunder (Eds.), Inequality and Society. Norton.
McCann, J. A., & Lawson, C. (2006). Presidential campaigns and the knowledge gap in three transitional democracies. Political Research Quarterly, 59(1), 13–22.
Mettler, S., & Soss, J. (2004). The consequences of public policy for democratic citizenship: bridging policy studies and mass politics. Perspectives on Politics, 2(1), 55–73.
Michener, J. (2018). Fragmented democracy: Medicaid, federalism, and unequal politics. Cambridge University Press.
Miller, C. M., Tsoka, M., & Reichert, K. (2011). The impact of the social cash transfer scheme on food security in Malawi. Food Policy, 36(2), 230–238.
Miller, M. K. (2019). Who knows more about politics? A dual explanation for the gender gap. American Politics Research, 47(1), 174–188.
Mondak, J. J. (1999). Reconsidering the measurement of political knowledge. Political Analysis, 8(1), 57–82.
Mondak, J. J. (2001). Developing valid knowledge scales. American Journal of Political Science, 45(1), 224–238.
Mondak, J. J., & Anderson, M. R. (2004). The Knowledge gap: A reexamination of gender-based differences in political knowledge. The Journal of Politics, 66(2), 492–512.
Mondak, J. J., & Davis, B. C. (2001). Asked and answered: Knowledge levels when we will not take ‘don’t know’ for an answer. Political Behavior, 23(3), 199–224.
Mussa, R., & Masanjala, W. H. (2015). A Dangerous divide: The state of inequality in Malawi. Oxfam International.
Nichter, S. (2018). Votes for survival: Relational clientelism in Latin America. Cambridge University Press.
Pierson, P. (1993). When effect becomes cause: Policy feedback and political change. World Politics, 45(4), 595–628.
Prior, M. (2014). Visual political knowledge: A different road to competence? The Journal of Politics, 76(1), 41–57.
Prior, M., & Lupia, A. (2008). Money, time, and political knowledge: Distinguishing quick recall and political learning skills. American Journal of Political Science, 52(1), 169–183.
Rizzo, T. (2019). When Clients Exit: Breaking the clientelist feedback loop. MIT. Working Paper
Sen, A. (1980). Equality of What? In S. M. McMurrin (Ed.), Tanner Lectures on Human Values. (Vol. I). Cambridge University Press.
Smets, K., & van Ham, C. (2013). The embarrassment of riches? A meta-analysis of individual-level research on voter turnout. Electoral Studies, 32(2), 344–359.
Soss, J. (2002). Unwanted claims: The politics of participation in the US welfare system. University of Michigan Press.
Soss, J., & Weaver, V. (2017). Police are our government: politics, political science, and the policing of race-class subjugated communities. Annual Review of Political Science, 20(1), 565–591.
Stolle, D., & Gidengil, E. (2010). What do women really know? A gendered analysis of varieties of political knowledge. Perspectives on Politics, 8(1), 93–109.
Sunstein, C. (1999). Social and economic rights - lessons from South Africa new developments in world constitutionalism. Constitutional Forum, 11(4), 123–132.
Verba, S., Burns, N., & Schlozman, K. L. (1997). Knowing and caring about politics: Gender and political engagement. The Journal of Politics, 59(4), 1051–1072.
Villarreal, A., & Silva, B. F. A. (2006). Social cohesion, criminal victimization and perceived risk of crime in Brazilian neighborhoods. Social Forces, 84(3), 1725–1753.
Weaver, V., Prowse, G., & Piston, S. (2019). Too much knowledge, too little power: An assessment of political knowledge in highly policed communities. Journal of Politics, 81(3), 1153–1166.
Weitz-Shapiro, R. (2014). Curbing clientelism in Argentina: Politics, poverty, and social policy. Cambridge University Press.
World Bank. (2018). The state of social safety nets 2018. World Bank.
Metadata
Title
Knowledge of Social Rights as Political Knowledge
Authors
Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro
Matthew S. Winters
Publication date
27-06-2022
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Political Behavior / Issue 4/2023
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09804-3

Other articles of this Issue 4/2023

Political Behavior 4/2023 Go to the issue

Original Paper

The Incumbency Advantage in Judicial Elections: Evidence from Partisan Trial Court Elections in Six U.S. States

Original Paper

Now or Later?: The Inter-temporal Decision-Making of Electoral Participation

Original Paper

Bridging the Gaps Between Us: Explaining When and Why People of Color Express Shared Political Views

Original Paper

Elite Cues and Economic Policy Attitudes: The Mediating Role of Economic Hardship

Original Paper

Voters Use Campaign Finance Transparency and Compliance Information

Original Paper

Valuing Politics: Explaining Citizen’s Normative Conceptions of Citizenship