Citizen Influence on Policy?

• What does Dye say?• Is there congruence between opinion & policy?• Examples?

– Life Sentence for Drug Dealers– Death Penalty– Flat Tax– Immigration– Minimum wage

• Why congruence or lack thereof ?

When does public opinion matter?

• What is the role of the media?

• What is the role of public officials?

• What is the role of political institutions (rules of the game)?

• What is public opinion?

Year % of respondents saying mentioning immigration as the most important issue in California

% Sample size 1998.00 5.6% 5171 1999.00 8.7% 3349 2000.00 3.6% 6809 2001.00 4.4% 9294 2002.00 5.6% 6946 2003.00 3.2% 9489 2004.00 6.9% 13484 2005.00 9.2% 11615 2006.00 20.2% 14825 2007.00 21.7% 6063

Criminal Justice: What are the publics' attitudes on crime policy?

• What side are they on?

• How have they changed over time?

• When and why did it begin to change?

• Are they real, are they rational?

Norrander & Capital Punishment

• In 1993 15 states had the death penalty

• But between 1993 & 1995 the number of death sentences handed out varied from 0 (3 states) and 110 (Texas).

Does Public Opinion Matter?

• It should:– Frequent elections– Active media/journalism– Direct democracy/initiatives– Interest groups (NRA, AARP, etc.)– Even bureaucrats and non-elected judges

seem to be aware and respect public opinion

Models of the link between public opinion and policy

• Majority Rule Model

• Reverse Linkage Model

• Incrementalism Model

• Institutional Lag Model

• Historical Chain Model

Majority Rule Model

• The simplest explanation of representation, where policy directly reflects public opinion. If the majority of the public favors a policy, the state should enact such a law. In the capital punishment arena, this would predict that all states would have the death penalty since the majority of citizens in every state support the policy

Reverse Linkage Model

• A reverse linkage model simply suggests that causality runs from policy to opinion. Under this model, prior policies influence current opinion by lending an air of legitimacy to positions incorporated in public programs.

Historical Chain Model

• Argues that the four models are not really separate or distinct but rather capture a different part of the process

• The simple majority rule take a short-term view; the reverse linkage model moves a bit farther back in time in the process and argues that policy also influences opinion.

• The Incrementalism Model looks back even further and looks how stable both policy and opinion are over time.

• And the Institutional Lag Model suggests that policy falls behind current public opinion because state institutions remain imbedded in a political culture shaped in an earlier era.

Norrander’s Conclusions

• Using a path analysis and OLS regression Norrander finds that all four models receive empirical support which bolsters the argument that a historical chain approach should be used to understand the link between public opinion and policy