A JÓ KORMÁNYZAT, AZ ISMERETGAZDAG VÁLASZTÓKÖZÖNSÉG, ÉS A TÖMEGTÁJÉKOZTATÁSI RENDSZER ÖSSZEFÜGGÉSEI NEMZETKÖZI ÖSSZEHASONLÍTÁSBAN
INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE, AN ELECTORATE RICH IN KNOWLEDGE AND THE SYSTEM OF MASS COMMUNICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON

Summary/Abstract: This essay is the edited version of the keynote lecture at the 2008 annual meeting of the Hungarian Political Science Association. It discusses the point of an academically-oriented political science, i.e., political science as an activity modelled on the example of the sciences, which largely refrains from commenting/advising on and interpreting current political processes, and only seeks applied relevance over the somewhat longer term and mostly by indirect means. It illustrates this argument with a brief summary of the author’s own research into the political impact and the determinants of citizens’ inevitably modest level of political knowledge. According to these, citizens’ low information level does not inevitably or always infl uence election outcomes, but usually does so to a notable although not truly dramatic extent. The bigger this influence over the course of two-three elections, the more negative developments one can expect in the quality of governance. The size of the same infl uence, in turn, seems to depend partly on structural traits of the mass communication system of the given countries.

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