Introduction

New research challenges a long-standing assumption within political science: that measuring individuals' knowledge of the exact seat distribution among parties is too complex for surveys. This article tackles this question directly, asking whether survey researchers can successfully gauge citizens' understanding of partisan legislative representation.

Our study utilizes two novel original surveys—conducted in Britain and Denmark the week before their respective 2015 elections—and employs survey experiments to test methods. We find that many political scientists previously doubted the feasibility of these complex questions because they were largely absent from survey research literature, yet our findings contradict this skepticism.

Methodology & Findings

Contrary to expectations, respondents did not show widespread frustration or high levels of non-cooperation when asked about specific seat counts. Our experiment further reveals that asking for the number of seats each party holds is significantly more effective than requesting knowledge of seat shares or percentages.

This finding has clear implications:

* It demonstrates the viability of directly measuring knowledge in multi-party systems

* It suggests survey experiments can be useful tools to improve complex question design

* The results provide a clearer methodology for future research on political knowledge

Conclusion

These findings indicate that gauging citizens' detailed understanding of partisan seat distributions is not only feasible but should become standard practice in comparative politics.