Uninformed

Why don’t more voters come forward to support–or reject–new laws and regulations that would directly affect them? In his new book, Uninformed: Why People Seem to Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It, political scientist Arthur Lupia argues that it’s a matter of education. And America’s key influencers, he writes, should address this–by making things personal. Rather than focusing on how an environmental regulation might slightly change the temperature on a polar ice cap, for example, Lupia contends that journalists, teachers and advocates should explain how it will save a local elementary school from ending up underwater. Once voters are hooked on a big-picture concept, it’s easier to get them engaged with the details of a law, rule or regulation–and take informed action to help it pass, fail or evolve. “There is no question,” Lupia writes, that knowing more “can change our decisions. There is no question that some of these changed decisions would improve our quality of life.”

–SARAH BEGLEY