Political Participation and the 'Feeling of Doing': The Causes and Consequences of Perceptions of Political Control

Abstract

Perceptions of political control (POPC) is a set of subjective beliefs about the effectiveness of specific actions in achieving desired political outcomes and how capable individuals feel in executing these strategies. We argue that participation in the political system, especially successful participation, fosters these control beliefs. POPC in turn affects how people understand their role in the political world and their reasoning in making political decisions. Using data from a two-wave national survey and a novel experiment, we show that the POPC is distinct from and superior to traditional measures of political efficacy and trust due to its stronger theoretical foundations. Further, as our theory suggests, we show that POPC increases with successful political participation and that individuals with higher POPC are more likely to attribute political outcomes to their personal actions and to ignore information implying that the effectiveness of their actions is conditioned by the political environment.