Christopher Wlezien

Opinion Policy Dynamics: Public Preferences and Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom

Work exploring the relationship between public opinion and public policy over time has largely been restricted to the United States. A wider application of this line of research can provide insights into how representation varies across political systems, however. This article takes a first step in this direction using a new body of data on public opinion and government spending in Britain. The results of analyses reveal that the British public appears to notice and respond (thermostatically) to changes in public spending in particular domains, perhaps even more so than in the United States. They also reveal that British policymakers represent these preferences in spending, though the magnitude and structure of this response is less pronounced and more general. The findings are suggestive about the structuring role of institutions.

Economic Perceptions and Vote Choice: Disentangling the Endogeneity

Much previous research shows that variation in vote choice closely follows variation in economic perceptions over time. A number of scholars argue that the pattern is rooted in cross-sectional effects and have found apparent evidence of such effects. However, most of these studies do not take into account the possibility that economic perceptions are themselves structured by vote choice, which poses potentially serious implications. We begin to address this endogeneity, focusing specifically on Lewis-Becks (1988) analysis of economic voting. The results suggest that the cross-sectional effects of the economy on vote choice have been substantially overstated.

Dynamics of Representation: The Case of US Spending on Defence

The representation of public preferences in public policy is fundamental to most conceptions of democracy. If representation is effectively undertaken, we would expect to find a correspondence between public preferences for policy and policy itself. If representation is dynamic, policy makers should respond to changes in preferences over time. The integrity of the representational connection, however, rests fundamentally on the expectation that the public actually notices and responds to policy decisions. Such a public would adjust its preferences for ‘more’ or ‘less’ policy in response to what policy makers actually do, much like a thermostat. Despite its apparent importance, there is little research that systematically addresses this feedback of policy on preferences over time. Quite simply, we do not know whether the public adjusts its preferences for policy in response to what policy makers do. By implication, we do not fully understand the dynamics of representation. This research begins to address these issues and focuses on the relationships between public preferences and policy in a single, salient domain.

Attitudes toward Europe and referendum votes: A response to Siune and Svensson

In their article in Electoral Studies (Volume 12 Number 2) of June 1993, Karen Siune and Palle Svensson argue that, during the run-up to the Danish referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in May 1992, the development of opinion leading to the ultimate rejection of the treaty was due to the Danish people’s reluctance to follow the advice of their usual party ‘if this advice is contrary to their own point of view’ (1993, p. 106). This is an important finding, for it suggests that the public is more knowledgeable, attentive, and informed than is generally assumed, even about issues that are outside what is generally considered to be their sphere of competence. Although the suggestion is in line with recent fmdings that the ‘minimalist’ view of the quality of public opinion was overdrawn (Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock, 1991) and that public opinion can change in quite rational ways as circumstances change (e.g. Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Peffley and Hurwitz, 1992; Wlezien and Goggin, 1993), it takes us beyond what has so far been established. However, before we conclude that a new level of rationality was shown by the Danish public in 1992, we should consider the possibility of a more prosaic explanation. In domains of low salience, such as foreign policy, we might expect opinions to be coupled to those in domains of high salience, such as governments’ handling of the economy. Indeed, this expectation was spelled out in regard to European attitudes by Ronald Inglehart as long ago as 1971 when he suggested that opinions about Europe would be easily overlaid by short-term national considerations (Inglehart, 1971). Perhaps, after all, the Maastricht referendum in Denmark was really a referendum on the performance of the national government. Table 1 shows the relationship between government approval and support for the Maastricht treaty in all three countries in which referendums were held in 1992, * We are grateful to Roland Cayrol, Andrew Appleton, and Torben Worre for providing us with French and Danish opinion poll data.

On the Limits to Inequality in Representation

The correspondence between public preferences and public policy is a critical rationale for representative democratic government. This view has been put forward in the theoretical literature on democracy and representation (e.g., Dahl 1971; Pitkin 1967; Birch 1971) and in “functional” theories of democratic politics (Easton 1965; Deutsch 1963), both of which emphasize the importance of popular control of policymaking institutions. Political science research also shows a good amount of correspondence between opinion and policy, though to varying degrees, across a range of policy domains and political institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere. This is of obvious significance.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2006 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, at the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties specialist group, Nottingham, England, and at the 2007 National Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago. We thank Vinod Menon for assistance with data collection and Kevin Arceneaux, Suzie DeBoef, Harold Clarke, Peter Enns, Mark Franklin, Martin Gilens, John Griffin, Will Jennings, Rich Joslyn, Benjamin Page, David Sanders, David Weakliem, John Zaller, and the anonymous reviewers for comments.

Political Institutions and the Opinion-Policy Link

The link between public opinion and policy is of special importance in representative democracies. Policymakers’ responsiveness to public opinion is critical. Public responsiveness to policy itself is as well. Only a small number of studies compare either policy or public responsiveness across political systems, however. Previous research has focused on a handful of countries – mostly the US, UK and Canada – that share similar cultures and electoral systems. It remains, then, for scholars to assess the opinion–policy connection across a broad range of contexts. This paper takes a first step in this direction, drawing on data from two sources: (1) public preferences for spending from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and (2) measures of government spending from OECD spending datasets. These data permit a panel analysis of 17 countries. The article tests theories about the effects of federalism, executive–legislative imbalance, and the proportionality of electoral systems. The results provide evidence of the robustness of the ‘thermostatic’ model of opinion and policy but also the importance of political institutions as moderators of the connections between them.

THE IMPACT OF LEGAL CONSTRAINTS ON VOTER REGISTRATION, TURNOUT, AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE

Research on the effects of restrictive voter registration laws has been largely passé for nearly a decade, apparently due to the widespread acceptance of Wolfinger and Rosenstones (1980) study of voter turnout. Wolfinger and Rosenstones research indicates that fully liberalized registration laws would produce a larger voting population, which would differ only marginally in its composition from the existing electorate. But their analysis only addresses turnout, not registration itself, and is based on a single sample of the American electorate, 1972. This paper focuses on the impact of restrictive laws on registration and turnout in presidential and nonpresidential election years during the period 1972–1982, relying on data from both the U.S. Census Bureaus Current Population Surveys and the National Election Studies. The results of the analyses do mark important points of difference from Wolfinger and Rosenstones findings. Ultimately, however, there is no escaping their conclusion that the implications of liberalized voter registration laws on the composition of the electorate would be relatively minor.

Presidential Polls as a Time Series: The Case of 1996

The study of voters and elections has shed considerable light on peoples vote choices and election outcomes. Yet little is known about the evolution of electoral sentiment over the campaign cycle. This article takes a small step toward addressing this issue by examining polls for a single election in a single year - the U.S. presidential race in 1996. The volume of poll data for 1996 allows us to observe the dynamics of voter preferences in far greater depth than is possible in previous years. Our analysis indicates that most of the variation in the polls during the 1996 presidential campaign represents survey error. What remains is mostly concentrated in the run-up to the fall campaign, not the fall campaign itself. During the fall, when political activity and media attention were at their peaks, aggregate presidential preferences remained largely unchanged. To the extent that campaign events influenced the underlying division of preferences, the effects were small and short-lived. Thus, our findings are consistent with the interpretation that the electoral verdict is already in place before the general election campaign begins

Partisan Preferences, Electoral Prospects, and Economic Expectations *

Research shows that economic expectations reflect partisan preferences. Those who support the current government tend to think the future will go well, at least by comparison with those who oppose the government. But, there always is uncertainty surrounding the political future, especially in the period before elections. This article considers whether the uncertainty matters. Specifically, it examines whether peoples economic expectations are conditional on their own estimates of who will win. The analysis relies on data from five election study panels in the United States and the United Kingdom, both majoritarian systems, where the effects of partisan winning and losing are most likely. The results imply that people in these countries do anticipate election outcomes; that is, economic expectations prior to elections reflect both the political present and future. This tells us not only that expectations in these systems are substantially rational but that politics plays a much bigger role in our economic thinking than originally thought.

Leading Economic Indicators, the Polls, and the Presidential Vote

On the eve of the election, the impending result of the presidential vote can be seen fairly clearly from trial-heat polls. Earlier in the election year, the polls offer much less information about what will happen on Election Day (see Campbell 2008 ; Wlezien and Erikson 2002 ). The polls capture preferences to the moment and do not—because they cannot—anticipate how preferences will evolve in the future, as the campaign unfolds. Various things ultimately impact the final vote. The standing of the sitting president is important. The economy is too. Both can change as the election cycle evolves. To make matters worse, late-arriving economic shocks have a bigger impact on the electoral verdict than those that arrive earlier. This complicates accurately forecasting the vote well in advance.