Perceptions of Public Opinion and Representation in American Politics

representation;public opinion;Political Science;Social Sciences;Political Science

Skovron, ChristopherValentino, Nicholas A ;

University of Michigan

关键词: representation;    public opinion;    Political Science;    Social Sciences;    Political Science;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/140969/cskovron_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

In the American system of representative government, the public;;s preferences influence public policy through a mediated process in which elected representatives respond to their constituents;; preferences primarily because of the threat of electoral sanction. One often-overlooked part of this process of representation is the role of how politicians perceive public opinion among their constituents. Because of limitations of their information environment and psychological biases in processing that information, politicians may not perceive their constituents;; opinions accurately, with profound consequences for representation. Working with a team of collaborators, I have conducted a series of surveys of political elites and additional analyses that provide new insight into how politicians understand and perceive their constituents. In this dissertation, I investigate politicians;; perceptions of public opinion. Drawingon original evidence from surveys of thousands of candidates running for state legislature, county party leaders, and ordinary citizens, my collaborators and I show that misperceptions of public opinion are rampant in American politics. We also show that, among elites, these misperceptions are asymmetrically biased --- on average, Republican politicians believe the public is much more supportive of conservative policies than it actually is. Democrats do not show a similar bias, failing to overestimate support for their own policies. In additional analyses, I show that state legislative candidates;; information sources may leave them particularly susceptible to misperceptions of public opinion, and I consider how asymmetries in citizen participation contribute to the asymmetric misperceptions we found among candidates running for office in 2012 and 2014. I also present evidence that ordinary citizens also overestimate the conservatism of citizens. In sum, the project provides unique evidence that misperceptions of what the public believes are an important force in American politics.