The ongoing existence of both policy representation and public responsiveness to policy, we argue, is critical to the functioning of representative democracy. In a concluding section, however, we reconsider opinion as a dependent variable specifically, we discuss its responsiveness to policy change. For most of the article, public opinion is an independent variable-an important driver of public policy change. The mechanics by which preferences are converted to policy are considered, along with extensions of the basic model-where the magnitude of opinion representation varies systematically across issues and political institutions. This article reviews the literature on representative behaviors and outputs. Still other research focuses on policy more directly, concentrating on legislative (and budgetary) outcomes.ĭescriptive traits, roll call voting behavior, and policy outcomes capture rather different aspects of representation, but each can be useful in gauging the nature and quality of democratic responsiveness.
Other studies examine the positions of policymakers, observed, for instance, through the roll call voting behavior of politicians. Some research focuses on “descriptive representation”-whether the partisan and demographic characteristics of elected politicians match the characteristics of the electorate itself.
Not surprisingly, there is a considerable body of research addressing the connection between the public and the government. The representation of public opinion in public policy is of obvious importance in representative democracies.
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