Is political knowledge unique?

Survey research shows that voters know very little about politics. Left unexamined is whether political knowledge is a distinct type of knowledge when compared to other subjects. We seek to establish a baseline by putting political knowledge into a broader context. We show that our respondents’ knowledge about politics is similar in construction to their knowledge about other subjects, such as shopping, sports, popular culture, geography, economics, and the rules of the road. We conclude that knowledge of politics largely resides on the same dimension as other knowledge topics, implying that knowledge of politics is not a unique construct.