Page 219 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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is not an uncommon subtext in behavioral political science. Most closely
allied, and spanning the boundary between rational and behavioral
theories, are models of informational satisficing that posit that certain
formsofbehaviorcanbeinterpretedaseffortstoavoidtheneedtoacquire
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costlyinformationbyemployingvariousshort-cutsandheuristics. The
concept of information as a cost of political action is also echoed in one of
the explanations of the relationship between education and engagement.
In such explanations, information is often understood as a prerequisite to
active participation; therefore, those with more education are more likely
to have both prior information relevant to an action and the capacity to
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acquire new information. Similarly, explanations of the mechanisms by
which elites and social networks mobilize citizens often are based on the
assumption that mobilization involves the subsidization of information
costs. 16
One of the most important features of the classical Downsian model
for understanding the implications of the instrumental approach to in-
formation is dealing with the dilemma of a priori attention. The central
feature of this dilemma is that it is apparently impossible for an individ-
ual to know which pieces of information are most relevant to a political
choice without first knowing the content of all information. That is, for
the would-be rational actor to calculate the marginal return from gather-
ing additional information apparently requires first knowing the content
of the information. To escape this dilemma, Downs argues, individuals
establish “a few gatherers and transmitters [of information] and mold
them into a personal information-acquisition system” that can be trusted
to focus attention and select information that is relevant and trustworthy

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Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock, Reasoning and Choice:
Explorations in Political Psychology (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press,
1991); Herbert A. Simon, Models of Man: Social and Rational (New York: Wiley,
1957).
15 Robert C. Luskin, “Explaining Political Sophistication,” in Richard G. Niemi and
Herbert F. Weisberg, eds., Controversies in Voting Behavior, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.:
CQ Press, 1993), pp. 114–136; Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E.
Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1995); Raymond E. Wolfinger and Steven J. Rosenstone,
Who Votes? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
16 AllanJ.CiglerandBurdettA.Loomis,eds.,InterestGroupPolitics,5thed.(Washington,
D.C.: CQ Press, 1998); Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and
Democracy in America; Jan Leighley, “Group Membership and the Mobilization of
Political Participation,” Journal of Politics 58, no. 2 (1996): 447–463; Jeffrey M. Berry,
The Interest Group Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984); Wolfinger and Rosenstone,
Who Votes?

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