Political efficacy is a theoretical concept used to explain political behavior in Political Science. It indicates citizens' faith and trust in government and his/her own belief that he/she can understand and influence political affairs. It is commonly measured by surveys and used as an indicator for the broader health of civil society.
When a citizen has low efficacy, he does not have faith in his government and does not believe his actions have an impact upon the actions of his political leaders. When a citizen has high efficacy, he has faith in his government and believes his actions have a positive effect on his government.
Feelings of efficacy are highly correlated with participation in social and political life; however, studies have not shown any relationship between public confidence in government or political leaders and voting. Efficacy usually increases with age and education level.
There are two types of political efficacy: internal efficacy (the belief that one can understand politics and therefore participate in politics) and external efficacy (the belief that one is effective when participating in politics, for example that the government will respond to one's demands).
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or efficacy:
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“If there is a case for mental events and mental states, it must be that the positing of them, like the positing of molecules, has some indirect systematic efficacy in the development of theory.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)