Abstract
Scholars often evaluate citizens' democratic competence by focusing on their ability to get relevant facts right. In this article, I show why this approach can yield misleading conclusions about citizen competence. I argue that although citizens with strong partisan loyalties might be forced to accept the same facts, they find alternative ways to rationalize reality. One such way, I show, is through the selective attribution of credit and blame. With four randomized experiments, conducted in diverse national settings and containing closed- as well as open-ended questions, I find that as partisans correctly updated economic beliefs to reflect new facts, they conversely attributed responsibility in a highly selective fashion. Although partisans might acknowledge the same facts, they are apt in seizing on and producing attributional arguments that fit their preferred worldviews.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | American Journal of Political Science |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 824-839 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISSN | 0092-5853 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 |