![]() ![]() The major contribution of this analysis is the application of action theory to the political realm using representative panel data, thereby going beyond previous research in the field. Therefore, in order better to understand the mechanism of how political knowledge might influence citizens’ participation in the political realm, this article examines internal political efficacy as a potential mediator of political knowledge: Following action theory, it argues that political knowledge stimulates the individual’s sense of political efficacy, which operates as a mediator by transmitting a substantial amount of that knowledge’s impact on actual participation in politics. On the other hand, the aforementioned scholars also suggest that political knowledge be a vital determinant of political efficacy. On the one hand, action theory suggests that subjective feelings of political efficacy might be more relevant than factual knowledge when predicting actual behaviour. Moreover, there is still a need to understand how political knowledge might be relevant to increasing political participation. Although political knowledge may be considered a significant quality of politically active and involved citizens, most people’s knowledge about politics appears insufficient to meet the standards of a “competent citizen” ( Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996 Maier, 2000). It is commonly understood that people who are more knowledgeable in political realm and who feel more efficacious to influence political decisions are more politically active. The discussion accounts for restrictions of this study and points to questions for answer by future research. The mediation patterns for unconventional political participation are less clear though. Sequentially mediated effects appear for voting and conventional political participation, with political knowledge being mediated by internal political efficacy and subsequently also by behavioural intentions. However, internal political efficacy and intentions to participate politically yield simultaneous direct effects only on conventional political participation. The results of mediated multiple regression analyses yield evidence that political knowledge indeed translates into internal political efficacy, thus it affects political participation of various kinds indirectly. It argues that political knowledge raises internal political efficacy and thereby indirectly increases the chance that a citizen will participate in politics. It employs an action theoretic approach-by and large grounded on the Theory of Planned Behaviour-and uses data from the German Longitudinal Election Study to examine whether political knowledge has distinct direct effects on voting, conventional, and/or unconventional political participation. internal political efficacy) in the prediction of political participation. This study presents evidence for the mediation effect of political knowledge through political self-efficacy (i.e.
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