Does popular influence over policy lead to good outcomes?
Does popular influence over policy produce good outcomes? It is surprisingly hard to say.
The highest standards of human well-being are generally found in established democracies. But influential scholars have recently questioned the competence of the electorate, arguing that most people have little idea of what goes on in politics, and know even less of which policies they would benefit from. Research the last decade has also shown that it is far from certain that the existence of democratic institutions means that the preferences of the average voter impacts policy. A finding common to contexts as diverse as the United States and Sweden is that the opinions of the wealthy matters much more than those of the poor.
If life is better in democracies, it might thus not be because people can govern themselves competently; instead, it has been argued that the good outcomes reflect other features than popular influence over policy, such as rule of law for elites, or the absence of corruption.
This project will bring evidence to bear on the debate, using a new, world-leading dataset that combines millions of survey answers with data on the implementation of thousands of policies in 43 countries. We will thus be able to see whether political and economic outcomes such as growth, unemployment, inequality and satisfaction with democracy turn out better when policy follows the “will of the people.”
Final report
The main question of the project was whether popular influence over policy leads to good outcomes. Judging from the empirical investigations conducted in the project, the answer unfortunately seems to be no. But it does not mean we should abolish democracy.
The purpose of the project was to use measurements of the congruence between public opinion towards specific policy proposals and implemented policy and see whether it corresponded with good outcomes. Such congruence between opinion and policy is seen as important in influential theories of democracy. Politicians do not have to do exactly what people say, but should justify going against public opinion, and they should not do so too often. But what are the consequences of policy that follows public opinion?
We had access to a large database, collected in a previous project, which contained attitudes to hundreds of political proposals from two million respondents in over 40 countries. We also had information about whether these proposals were implemented during a five-year period. For the main analyses we combined this database with information about political and economic outcomes such as election results and public deficits. We also did several additional studies that dug deeper in the connection between public opinion and policy.
It is not always easy to define what a good outcome is. In one study we therefore delegated the task to voters and explored whether governments that implemented popular proposals also had a higher chance of reelection. Previous research has shown that governments do better in good times, and if popular policy led to good times we should see it manifested in better election results. However, we found that governments that implemented popular proposals the most had no higher chance of being reelected. We did reaffirm that governments did better when unemployment was low and growth high; the problem was that popular policy proposals did not seem to foster these outcomes. There was furthermore no indication that voters rewarded governments for implementing popular proposals regardless of the outcome. This is also in line with previous research that shows that so called retrospective policy voting is uncommon.
We then examined citizens’ economic attitudes in detail. We found that large majorities of citizens in most surveyed countries wanted increased public expenditure, especially on health, education, pensions, the environment, and law and order. Still, almost all citizens wanted to decrease taxes for those with low and middle incomes. If we take these survey responses seriously the implication is that higher taxes on the affluent should finance large increases in expenditure as well as lower taxes for the rest. We then investigated to what extent majorities got what they wanted both in terms of changes in expenditure for different areas and taxes for different income groups. When citizens got what they wanted public expenditure increased while revenue decreased. The consequence was increasing public deficits and growing debt. We could not see any clear indications that popular policy led to decreasing unemployment or inequality.
In one study we focused on an important current issue, namely monetary policy and inflation reduction. We did so with the aid of large amounts of survey data from the United Kingdom. Survey responses showed that there was a strong connection between the degree of inflation and people’s preferences for monetary policy, but in a way that is opposite of what conventional economic theory recommends. The higher inflation was, the more people wanted to lower interest rates, most likely because lower rates would bring down costs of mortgage payments in the short run. Our analyses also revealed that people did not seem to support the official two-percent goal for inflation: satisfaction with the current interest rate were highest when respondents perceived inflation to be zero. It is therefore probable that if policy had followed opinion more closely, by lowering interest rates, inflation would have been exacerbated.
We also examined in what ways the policy people want differs from the policy they get. Implemented proposals in the data are generally supported, and the new proposals who are most popular are also the most likely to be implemented. This is indicative of political responsiveness to public opinion. But there are still systematic patterns in which kinds of proposals that get implemented and not. Previous research has focused on comparisons between groups of citizens, but the picture is different when one instead focuses on the content of policy. Our analyses show that in economic policy “leftist” proposals for redistribution and more welfare are under-implemented relative to their public support. The same is true for “authoritarian” proposals, such as harsher penalties and stricter immigration laws. The under-provision of these types of policy means that policy hews closer to what the affluent want, as they are less supportive of leftist and authoritarian proposals. But it is still not fair to say that the rich get what they want. If policy had corresponded exactly to the preferences of the top earners in our data, it would still be more leftist and authoritarian than it is today. Whether this is a good outcome or not depends on one’s political preferences.
Our empirical results do hence not indicate that policy that follows public opinion leads to good outcomes. But this does not mean that popular influence over policy is bad, at least not if we take a broader view of popular influence. Sure, most theories of democracy value responsiveness to public opinion, but being a good representative requires more than simply implementing wish lists from voters. Good representation is a balancing act between taking independent action (in the interest of the represented) and being responsive to them.
It is furthermore not easy to pin down what citizens really want. The survey data we use shows that when asked about spending areas in isolation, most want higher expenditure. But when the same respondents are asked if government expenditure in general should be cut, they answer yes to this question as well. Which of these seemingly contradictory answers take precedence? Other research also shows that attitudes towards political proposals are strongly affected by mention of trade-offs. Persons that claim to support increases in expenditure for childcare become more negative when told that funds will be taken from pensions, and so on.
And here we arrive at the core of representative democracy. Regular citizens do not need to make all these trade-offs; that it is the task of our elected representatives. And the fact of the matter is that political systems where citizens can hold their representatives to account perform better in the long run than authoritarian political systems where citizens cannot.
The project has therefore led to several new research questions and tasks. In our view the most important task is to develop a theoretical model that shows exactly how popular influence manages to keep politics on track, although strict adherence to public opinion in many cases would lead to bad outcomes. An associated empirical task is to investigate how politicians perceive and relate to public opinion. When do they think it is important to follow it; what kind of opinions among citizens do they listen to; how accurate are their perceptions of what people think; how do they weigh public opinion against other values, such as fiscal responsibility; and so on.
Results from the project have been communicated in several ways. Several articles are published in scientific journals, and more are currently under review. One book chapter has been published in a scholarly anthology, and another one is forthcoming. Results have been presented to the scholarly community at several international conference: The annual meetings of the American Political Science Association in Seattle 2021 (online), in Montreal 2022, Los Angeles 2023 and in Philadelphia 2024, at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Prague 2023, at the General Conference of the European Political Science Association in Cologne 2024, and at the annual meetings of the Swedish Political Science Association in Gothenburg 2023. We have participated as invited presenters at the Unequal Democracies Workshop, University of Geneva November 2021, at the Workshop on Political Inequality: Origins, Effects and Remedies, Uppsala University December 2023, and at the Workshop on Political Economy and Behavior, Lund University September 2024. We have also given talks at research seminars at Uppsala University April 2021, Stockholm University November 2021, University of Oslo October 2024, and many times at University of Gothenburg. Finally, Anders Sundell have written a series of columns inspired by the project for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, discussing representation, the role of public opinion and the pros and cons of democracy as a form of government.
The purpose of the project was to use measurements of the congruence between public opinion towards specific policy proposals and implemented policy and see whether it corresponded with good outcomes. Such congruence between opinion and policy is seen as important in influential theories of democracy. Politicians do not have to do exactly what people say, but should justify going against public opinion, and they should not do so too often. But what are the consequences of policy that follows public opinion?
We had access to a large database, collected in a previous project, which contained attitudes to hundreds of political proposals from two million respondents in over 40 countries. We also had information about whether these proposals were implemented during a five-year period. For the main analyses we combined this database with information about political and economic outcomes such as election results and public deficits. We also did several additional studies that dug deeper in the connection between public opinion and policy.
It is not always easy to define what a good outcome is. In one study we therefore delegated the task to voters and explored whether governments that implemented popular proposals also had a higher chance of reelection. Previous research has shown that governments do better in good times, and if popular policy led to good times we should see it manifested in better election results. However, we found that governments that implemented popular proposals the most had no higher chance of being reelected. We did reaffirm that governments did better when unemployment was low and growth high; the problem was that popular policy proposals did not seem to foster these outcomes. There was furthermore no indication that voters rewarded governments for implementing popular proposals regardless of the outcome. This is also in line with previous research that shows that so called retrospective policy voting is uncommon.
We then examined citizens’ economic attitudes in detail. We found that large majorities of citizens in most surveyed countries wanted increased public expenditure, especially on health, education, pensions, the environment, and law and order. Still, almost all citizens wanted to decrease taxes for those with low and middle incomes. If we take these survey responses seriously the implication is that higher taxes on the affluent should finance large increases in expenditure as well as lower taxes for the rest. We then investigated to what extent majorities got what they wanted both in terms of changes in expenditure for different areas and taxes for different income groups. When citizens got what they wanted public expenditure increased while revenue decreased. The consequence was increasing public deficits and growing debt. We could not see any clear indications that popular policy led to decreasing unemployment or inequality.
In one study we focused on an important current issue, namely monetary policy and inflation reduction. We did so with the aid of large amounts of survey data from the United Kingdom. Survey responses showed that there was a strong connection between the degree of inflation and people’s preferences for monetary policy, but in a way that is opposite of what conventional economic theory recommends. The higher inflation was, the more people wanted to lower interest rates, most likely because lower rates would bring down costs of mortgage payments in the short run. Our analyses also revealed that people did not seem to support the official two-percent goal for inflation: satisfaction with the current interest rate were highest when respondents perceived inflation to be zero. It is therefore probable that if policy had followed opinion more closely, by lowering interest rates, inflation would have been exacerbated.
We also examined in what ways the policy people want differs from the policy they get. Implemented proposals in the data are generally supported, and the new proposals who are most popular are also the most likely to be implemented. This is indicative of political responsiveness to public opinion. But there are still systematic patterns in which kinds of proposals that get implemented and not. Previous research has focused on comparisons between groups of citizens, but the picture is different when one instead focuses on the content of policy. Our analyses show that in economic policy “leftist” proposals for redistribution and more welfare are under-implemented relative to their public support. The same is true for “authoritarian” proposals, such as harsher penalties and stricter immigration laws. The under-provision of these types of policy means that policy hews closer to what the affluent want, as they are less supportive of leftist and authoritarian proposals. But it is still not fair to say that the rich get what they want. If policy had corresponded exactly to the preferences of the top earners in our data, it would still be more leftist and authoritarian than it is today. Whether this is a good outcome or not depends on one’s political preferences.
Our empirical results do hence not indicate that policy that follows public opinion leads to good outcomes. But this does not mean that popular influence over policy is bad, at least not if we take a broader view of popular influence. Sure, most theories of democracy value responsiveness to public opinion, but being a good representative requires more than simply implementing wish lists from voters. Good representation is a balancing act between taking independent action (in the interest of the represented) and being responsive to them.
It is furthermore not easy to pin down what citizens really want. The survey data we use shows that when asked about spending areas in isolation, most want higher expenditure. But when the same respondents are asked if government expenditure in general should be cut, they answer yes to this question as well. Which of these seemingly contradictory answers take precedence? Other research also shows that attitudes towards political proposals are strongly affected by mention of trade-offs. Persons that claim to support increases in expenditure for childcare become more negative when told that funds will be taken from pensions, and so on.
And here we arrive at the core of representative democracy. Regular citizens do not need to make all these trade-offs; that it is the task of our elected representatives. And the fact of the matter is that political systems where citizens can hold their representatives to account perform better in the long run than authoritarian political systems where citizens cannot.
The project has therefore led to several new research questions and tasks. In our view the most important task is to develop a theoretical model that shows exactly how popular influence manages to keep politics on track, although strict adherence to public opinion in many cases would lead to bad outcomes. An associated empirical task is to investigate how politicians perceive and relate to public opinion. When do they think it is important to follow it; what kind of opinions among citizens do they listen to; how accurate are their perceptions of what people think; how do they weigh public opinion against other values, such as fiscal responsibility; and so on.
Results from the project have been communicated in several ways. Several articles are published in scientific journals, and more are currently under review. One book chapter has been published in a scholarly anthology, and another one is forthcoming. Results have been presented to the scholarly community at several international conference: The annual meetings of the American Political Science Association in Seattle 2021 (online), in Montreal 2022, Los Angeles 2023 and in Philadelphia 2024, at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Prague 2023, at the General Conference of the European Political Science Association in Cologne 2024, and at the annual meetings of the Swedish Political Science Association in Gothenburg 2023. We have participated as invited presenters at the Unequal Democracies Workshop, University of Geneva November 2021, at the Workshop on Political Inequality: Origins, Effects and Remedies, Uppsala University December 2023, and at the Workshop on Political Economy and Behavior, Lund University September 2024. We have also given talks at research seminars at Uppsala University April 2021, Stockholm University November 2021, University of Oslo October 2024, and many times at University of Gothenburg. Finally, Anders Sundell have written a series of columns inspired by the project for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, discussing representation, the role of public opinion and the pros and cons of democracy as a form of government.