National Elections and Political Attitudes: The Case of Political Efficacy

TLDR

Elections are a primary means of citizen participation, and while political efficacy—the belief that individual action can influence politics—is linked to turnout, the direction and mechanisms of this relationship, especially how participation or election outcomes affect efficacy, remain poorly understood. This study investigates how voting, campaign activity, and the 1984 national election outcomes influence political efficacy in the American electorate. Covariance structure analysis is used to model these effects.

Abstract

Elections constitute a principal avenue of citizen involvement in political life, and knowledge of their effects on public attitudes towards the polity and the role of the individual therein has important implications for theories of democratic governance. One sucli attitude is political efficacy, ‘the feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact on the political process’. Although many studies have documented that political efficacy is positively associated with electoral participation, the causal mechanisms involved are not well understood. Most researchers have simply assumed that the ‘causal arrow’ runs from efficacy to participation, i.e. from the attitude to the behaviour. Investigations of the hypothesis that the behaviour (participation) affects the attitude (efficacy) are rare. Rarer still are enquiries focusing on the impact of election outcomes on efficacy, and studies that examine both effects are virtually non-existent. In this Note covariance structure analysis is used to investigate the effects of voting, campaign activity and the outcomes of the 1984 national elections on political efficacy in the American electorate.