In the first comparative study of multidimensional government‐citizen policy congruence, this article shows that citizens are less satisfied with democracy when their views differ from that of the government on policy dimensions beyond the general left‐right axis. Satisfaction is reduced by a government that deviates on European integration and redistribution and partly also on social lifestyle, immigration and environmental protection. Furthermore, this analysis identifies the level of political interest as central moderator of this relationship. Satisfaction of citizens with stronger interest in politics suffers more when there is a politically distant government. Combining data from the 2010 Chapel Hill Expert Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey, the analysis builds on information on citizen‐government policy congruence of some 45,000 citizens and 31 governments in 15 Western and Central Eastern European countries. The article brings a multidimensional perspective to the study of policy congruence between citizens and governments in a time when the preference structure of parties and citizens has become increasingly complex.

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This article investigates how and why political knowledge varies among young children. The data of the empirical analyses are adapted from the German study “Learning to Live Democracy” and consists of a three-wave panel of 431 young children who were interviewed at the beginning and at the end of their first school year, as well as at the end of their fourth school year. The empirical results show that political knowledge among young children is not equally distributed. Girls, children from Turkish families and/or those from areas with a low socioeconomic status show a tendency to be less politically knowledgeable than boys, children from native German families and/or those from areas with a higher socioeconomic status. These differences do not disappear during the first years in school.

One of the best-known empirical findings in the political sciences is the gender difference in political knowledge: women show less political knowledge than men. Conventional research argues that this difference is mainly a product of socialization, structural factors, and biology. Our paper brings a new perspective to the explanation of the gender gap in political knowledge. Based on an online survey and an experiment1, we emphasize the relevance of gender stereotypes as a situational pressure that reduces the performance of women in a political knowledge test. Two conclusions emerge from the analysis: First, our results indicate the existence of a negative stereotype related to the political knowledge of women. Second, the activation of gender stereotypes affects performance on a political knowledge test. Consistent with previous research on stereotype threat, our results indicate that the performance of men on a political knowledge test is affected by gender stereotypes.

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