Macrointerest Across Countries

Yue Hu

doi:10.1017/S0007123424001042

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Macrointerest Across Countries

2025-04-28

胡悦 (Yue Hu)

Frederick Solt *

DOI：10.1017/S0007123424001042

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Abstract

En 中文

The extent to which the public takes an interest in politics has long been argued to be foundational to democracy, but the want of appropriate data has prevented cross-national and longitudinal analysis. This letter takes advantage of recent advances in latent-variable modelling of aggregate survey responses and a comprehensive collection of survey data to generate dynamic comparative estimates of macrointerest, that is, aggregate political interest, for over a hundred countries over the past four decades. These macrointerest scores are validated with other aggregate measures of political interest and of other types of political engagement. A cross-national and longitudinal analysis of macrointerest in advanced democracies reveals that along with election campaigns and inclusive institutions, it is good economic conditions, not bad times, that spur publics to greater interest in politics.

Keywords:

political interest

dynamic comparative public opinion (DCPO)

cross-national time-series analysis

public survey democracy

OECD

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