How does public opinion influence public policy

Representation can occur in two familiar ways. The first way is indirect, through elections, where the public selects like-minded politicians who then deliver what it wants in policy. This is the traditional pathway to representation and is deeply rooted in the literature on responsible parties Adams, In effect, the public chooses among alternative policy visions and then the winning parties put their programs into place after the election. The second way to representation is direct, where sitting politicians literally respond to what the public wants.

This pathway reflects an active political class, one that endeavors to stay closely attuned to the ebb and flow of public opinion and adjust policy accordingly. The two ways to representation actually are related. That is, the first way implies the second, at least assuming incumbent politicians are interested in remaining in office or else motivated to represent our preferences for other reasons.

This is how we think of representative democracy, how we think it should work, i. Responsiveness is dynamic—responsive politicians follow preferences as they change. Policy change is the result. We can formally express these expectations by revising our equation 1 for policy P as follows:.

Here policy is conceived to be directly responsive to opinion and also indirectly responsive, through changes in partisan composition owing to elections. Of course, the indirect linkage presupposes a connection between public opinion and party control of government:. These models apply across both space and time. We can characterize the relationships between opinion and governments and policy across countries or, say, provinces or states within a country. There are relatively few studies across countries, as good comparative data are hard to come by, though scholarly explorations are underway.

There is more research on the U. We also can characterize relationships over time, as preferences change, following the study of dynamic representation. They show that policy change nicely follows opinion over time independently of party control. Wlezien and Soroka and Wlezien show the same focusing on budgetary policy. This does not mean that politicians actually respond to changing public preferences, for it may be that they and the public both respond to something else, e.

All we can say for sure is that the research captures policy responsiveness in a statistical sense—whether and the extent to which public preferences directly influence policy change, other things being equal.

Of course, policy responsiveness is an institutional outcome. In parliamentary systems, this is fairly straightforward—the government can change policy directly, assuming that it does not face a realistic threat of a vote of no confidence. In presidential systems, agreement across institutions usually is required, as in the United States.

Presidential responsiveness to public preferences is conceptually quite simple: The president represents a national constituency and is expected to follow national preferences. Congressional responsiveness is more complex, even putting aside bicameralism, as members of the legislature represent districts. To the extent that they are responsive to public preferences, then, both the president and Congress should move in tandem, and predictable policy change is the logical consequence, even in the presence of divided government.

Here we have a good amount of evidence, as we have seen. How exactly do politicians know what public preferences are? Elections likely provide a good deal of information, but direct representation between elections requires something further.

Politicians may learn about preferences through interactions with constituents; they may just have a good intuition for public preferences Fenno, Polls likely also play a critical role.

This work is critical: it shows one means by which politicians learn about public preferences. Of course, politicians have other, more direct sources of information as well. Representation does not occur in all policy domains in all countries. The characteristics of domains appear to matter, for instance. Let us briefly trace the logic. In its simplest sense, a salient issue is politically important to the public. People care about the issue and have meaningful opinions that structure party support and candidate evaluation.

Candidates are likely to take positions on the issue and it is likely to form the subject of political debate. Politicians, meanwhile, are likely to pay attention to public opinion on the issue—it is in their self-interest to do so, after all.

There are many different and clear expressions of this conception of importance. This reflects a now classic perspective see, e. This not only implies variation in representation across, it implies variation in responsiveness within domains over time, as salience changes.

When an issue is not very salient to the public, politicians are expected to be less responsive. As salience increases, however, the relationship should increase. That is, to the extent that salience varies over time, the relationship between opinion and policy itself may vary.

Though the expectation is clear, there is little research on the subject. We simply do not know whether representation varies much over time. Indeed, we still do not know much about the variation in issue importance see Wlezien, Public preferences in the different policy domains are not entirely unique—they tend to move together over time.

This patterned movement in preferences is well documented in the United States Erikson et al. The pattern has led some scholars to conclude that the public does not have preferences for policy in different areas, but rather a single, very general preference for government activity e. From this perspective, measured preferences in various domains largely represent multiple indicators of a single, underlying preference for government action.

When compared with the more traditional perspective, this characterization of public opinion implies a very different, global pattern of representation.

Some research shows that, although preferences in different areas do move together over time, the movement is not entirely common Wlezien, Preferences in some domains share little in common with preferences in others; these preferences often move quite independently over time. In short, the work indicates that preferences are some combination of the global and specific —moving together to some degree, but exhibiting some independent variation as well.

Not surprisingly, these domains tend to be highly salient to voters, the ones on which they pay close attention to what policymakers do. In other less salient domains, policy only follows the general global signal. In yet other, very low salience domains, policy seemingly does not follow preferences at all. Polities differ in many ways, and some of these differences should have significant implications for the nature and degree of representation.

Of fundamental importance are media openness and political competition. Without some degree of media openness, people cannot easily receive information about what government actors do, and thus cannot effectively hold politicians accountable for their actions. Without some level of political competition, governments have less incentive to respond to public opinion.

There is in fact a good body of work on electoral competition and representation. Early research on the subject focuses on dyadic representation in the United States, and argues that legislators facing serious electoral competition are more likely to pay attention to their constituency. For a recent review, see Griffin, Work focused on policy outputs has also considered and found evidence for the impact of political competitiveness on representation e.

Even where we have essential levels of media and political competition, as in most modern democracies including new ones , institutional differences may have important implications for policy representation.

Here we have a growing body of empirical work, particularly on electoral systems. Lijphart provides the first direct statement on the matter. Most importantly, Lijphart suggests that consensual democracies provide better descriptive representation and general policy congruence than do majoritarian systems.

Powell provides further empirical support, focusing specifically on the differences between majoritarian and proportional election rules and their implications for representation. Powell finds that proportional representation tends to produce greater congruence between the government and the public; specifically, that the general ideological disposition of government and the ideological bent of the electorate tend to match up better in proportional systems.

According to Powell, this reflects the greater, direct participation of constituencies the vision affords also see Miller et al. But what about in the periods between elections? Are coalition governments more responsive to ongoing changes in opinion? Although proportional systems may provide more indirect representation, it is not clear that they afford greater direct representation.

There is reason to think that governments in majoritarian systems actually are more responsive to opinion change. First, it presumably is easier for a single party to respond to changes than a multiparty coalition, as coordination in the latter is more difficult and costly. Second, majoritarian governments may have more of an incentive to respond to opinion change. Understanding the origins of public opinion, the state of contemporary public knowledge about politics, and the ways that political elites shape and measure public opinion are the key aims of this chapter.

What is public opinion? How is it expressed? What are the most common topics on which people hold political opinions? To what extent is the character of American public opinion best described as consensus-oriented or as evidence of polarization? From where do Americans get their opinions about politics? Broadly speaking, the report found a differing view between the generations about what the state should or should not be doing.

At one end of the spectrum the elder "collectivist" post-war generation who, unsurprisingly, places value in a society and state that cares for the most needy, and at the other, a younger generation of teenagers and those in their 20's who broadly take a more "individualist" view of the world where each needs to take greater responsibility for themselves.

In either case, underlying changes in public opinion across generations highlight the profound impact this may have on drawing up the public policy priorities of the future. Marcus Hobley is a freelance commentator, specialising in economic and public policy, he tweets at marcushobley. This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Guardian Public Leaders Network free to receive regular emails on the issues at the top of the professional agenda.

Public opinion can play a positive role in policy making. Public opinion can have various effects on how policy is made or viewed. Marcus Hobley sifts through the sometimes troubled relationship. Yet, when reminded that higher spending would be funded by higher taxes, support levels decrease to 48 percent. Policy-makers and citizens are repeatedly forced to make tough choices in trade-off environments.

Figure 2 : Support for higher educational investment in various trade-off scenarios split sample. For public opinion to matter it is important how salient a topic is, i. Some topics are very salient, such as changes in the number of years children stay at school or the introduction of tuition fees. On these issues, most people have an opinion and find the topic relevant.

Other topics are much less salient, for example whether vocational schools should offer more math courses or how higher education institutions should be internally steered.

High salience is a necessary condition for public opinion influence: public opinion only plays a role for policy-making when an issue is salient. Salience alone cannot explain what role public opinion plays in policy reforms. In order to understand this better, we additionally need to look at the degree to which citizens agree or disagree on certain issues. Some topics are salient and most people share the same opinion. Public opinion accordingly plays an important role.