In addition to their appraisals of their own political knowledge, people’s actual political knowledge can also be important for political participation. As with self-perceived political knowledge and understanding (or lack thereof), actual political knowledge (or lack thereof) might motivate (or inhibit) political action. This might be in terms of being able to converse with others about developments in national politics, or in more practical terms relating to things such as writing to elected representatives. In this light, the survey asked people whether they know a local venue that could host a public venue, whether an MP is obliged to respond to letters, whether they could identify their local MP from a list of names, and whether they could match photographs of five prominent politicians to their roles.
Figure 1 (above, using weighted data) shows that people are generally very familiar with the identities of politicians but less knowledgeable about questions relating to taking political action. When asked whether they could identify a local venue that could host a public meeting (panel A), more than two fifths (46.1%) think that they have an idea of such a place and three in ten (29.8%) definitely know of one. However, a fifth of people (22.6%) either don’t know of such a place or cannot think of one. Further, only one in seven people (14.3%) know that MPs are not required to reply to letters that they receive (even if it is good practice for them to do so), and a full third (33.4%) admit that they do not know. Turning to the task of identifying politicians, people generally fare much better, and almost three quarters (73.7%) can pick their local MP out of a list of names (panel C). Similar numbers could match Theresa May (75.9%, panel G) and John Bercow (76.6%, panel H) to their respective roles (Home Secretary, Speaker of the House of Commons) at the time, whilst nine in ten could match Ed Miliband (92.7%, panel D) and Nick Clegg (92.4%) to their roles (Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Prime Minister). It was only Justine Greening (panel F) who people struggled to match to her role as International Development Secretary, with two fifths (40.2%) picking the correct answer but a slightly larger percentage (45.5%) indicating that they did not know her role.
Figure 1 (above, using weighted data) shows that people are generally very familiar with the identities of politicians but less knowledgeable about questions relating to taking political action.[1] When asked whether they could identify a local venue that could host a public meeting (panel A), more than two fifths (46.1%) think that they have an idea of such a place and three in ten (29.8%) definitely know of one. However, a fifth of people (22.6%) either don’t know of such a place or cannot think of one. Further, only one in seven people (14.3%) know that MPs are not required to reply to letters that they receive (even if it is good practice for them to do so), and a full third (33.4%) admit that they do not know. Turning to the task of identifying politicians, people generally fare much better, and almost three quarters (73.7%) can pick their local MP out of a list of names (panel C). Similar numbers could match Theresa May (75.9%, panel G) and John Bercow (76.6%, panel H) to their respective roles (Home Secretary, Speaker of the House of Commons) at the time, whilst nine in ten could match Ed Miliband (92.7%, panel D) and Nick Clegg (92.4%) to their roles (Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Prime Minister). It was only Justine Greening (panel F) who people struggled to match to her role as International Development Secretary, with two fifths (40.2%) picking the correct answer but a slightly larger percentage (45.5%) indicating that they did not know her role.
| Variable names | poli_knowletter, poli_local_mp, poli_pk_miliband, poli_pk_clegg, poli_pk_greening, poli_pk_may, poli_pk_bercow |
| Number of cases | 1,405 |
| Number of categories | 4-7 |
| Categories to code as missing | None |
| Cases to code as missing | None |
| Recoded variable name | pe_knowmpn_b, pe_knowem_b, pe_knownc_b, pe_knowjg_b, pe_knowtm_b, pe_knowjb_b, pe_knowmpl_b, pe_pk_c |
| Number of cases | 1,405 |
| Number of categories | 2-7 |
| New and old categories | People who selected the correct answer on each of the original knowledge questions were coded as 1 on the respective new binary variables, whilst all incorrect and ‘Don’t know’ answers were coded as zero. The count variable (indicating how many correct answers were selected) was then calculated by adding the new binary variables together. As such, a zero (0) on the count variable indicates that none of the factual political knowledge questions were answered correctly, whilst a seven (7) indicates that they were all answered correctly. |
Privilege and Participation 