Beyond political interest: Citizen profile identification from the European Social Survey

Abstract: The first step towards developing targeted policies to boost political interest is to identify the main characteristics of individuals interested (and those who are not) in politics. This article aims at exploring the common factors shared by individuals with the same political interest. This is investigated through a cluster analysis, a rarely used technique in the field of political behavior, with data from the European Social Survey. The results are in line with the initial expectations and show that civic skills, represented by the educational background and the frequency of relational meetings, are determinants of political interest. Nonetheless, for those with the same civic skills, other socio-demographic, economic, and relational factors can diverge depending on the political interest. More in detail, the main attributes distinguishing individuals with the same level of civic skills but a different level of political interest are socio-demographic. In other words, among individuals with high civic skills, the main differences between those politically interested and those who are not are on the variables about age, gender and marital status. In addition, the research highlights the relevance of cluster analysis to obtain closer details on behavioral patterns than those obtained through regression analysis.