In search of the informed citizen: What Americans know about politics and why it matters

In The Good Citizen Michael Schudson presents a history of civic life in America, arguing that the “informed citizen” model is both limited in its historical application and limiting in its expectations and hyper‐rationality. In this paper I present evidence and arguments suggesting that while the model of the informed citizen can and has been used to discount the abilities and thus the participation of citizens by expecting too much of them, ignoring the importance of a broadly and equitably informed citizenry runs the equally dangerous risk of doing so by expecting too little. While an informed public is not sufficient to democratic citizenship, it is a necessary component of it. In the end, any notion of “the good citizen” must include some notion of “the informed citizen.”