What if People Knew more about Politics? Simulating Fully Informed Votes and Attitudes in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Decades of research in public opinion have showed that most people are highly uninformed about politics. However, the consequences of low information on voting and political attitudes remain unclear, especially in young democracies.

Methods

In this paper, we simulate a “fully informed” electorate using data from the Brazilian Electoral Study (ESEB) and ask: (1) How would Brazilians vote if they were more informed? and (2) How would public opinion look like if Brazilians were more informed? Here, information refers to knowledge about government and politics, in general.

Results

Our findings suggest votes and public opinion would be different in Brazil if its electorate were more knowledgeable. The lack of information seems to systematically orientate collective preferences, suggesting that such errors are not random, but rather as a product of information asymmetries among citizens.

Discussion

These asymmetries can be especially problematic when it comes to which views are taken into account by voter representatives when making important decisions.The effects of political disinformation have been seen under different glances by political science. Although some theorists argue that lack of information has no significant effects on democracy, others believe that it can have notable consequences for collective choices and for the political attitudes of citizens. Our results put us next to the second group of researchers.

KEYWORDS:
political knowledge; cognitive shortcuts; votes; political attitudes; voting simulations