Democracy relies on citizens talking politics, yet many say they avoid it. However, people may not avoid political talk itself but what they perceive "politics" to be. Without understanding these perceptions, we cannot tell what citizens opt out of and why. What looks like disengagement may be a rejection of connotations of "politics" - a distinction key to accurately diagnosing democratic health.

The project develops a systematic framework of how people understand political talk, grounded in their lived experiences. It starts with in-depth qualitative methods like focus groups and then develops novel techniques to study meaning-making at scale in survey designs. It then tests experimentally how these perceptions causally influence whether citizens engage in or avoid talking politics.