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The opinion-policy nexus in Europe and the role of political institutions
[journal article]
Abstract A strong link between citizen preferences and public policy is one of the key goals and criteria of democratic governance. Yet, our knowledge about the extent to which public policies on specific issues are in line with citizen preferences in Europe is limited. This article reports on the first stud... view more
A strong link between citizen preferences and public policy is one of the key goals and criteria of democratic governance. Yet, our knowledge about the extent to which public policies on specific issues are in line with citizen preferences in Europe is limited. This article reports on the first study of the link between public opinion and public policy that covers a large and diverse sample of concrete public policy issues in 31 European democracies. The findings demonstrate a strong positive relationship and a substantial degree of congruence between public opinion and the state of public policy. Also examined is whether political institutions, including electoral systems and the horizontal and vertical division of powers, influence the opinion‐policy link. The evidence for such effects is very limited, which suggests that the same institutions might affect policy representation in countervailing ways through different mechanisms.... view less
Keywords
representation; public opinion; political institution; preference; electoral system; regression analysis; public policy; democracy; governance; EVS; Eurobarometer; European Social Survey; Europe; Iceland; Portugal; Estonia; Romania; France; Sweden; Austria; Greece; Hungary; Malta; Netherlands; Slovakia; Cyprus; Denmark; Finland; Lithuania; Bulgaria; Federal Republic of Germany; Spain; Luxembourg; Croatia; Latvia; Norway; Great Britain; Belgium; Slovenia; Switzerland; Czech Republic; Ireland; Italy; Poland; cross-sectional study; multi-level analysis; separation of powers; ISSP
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
policy representation; policy congruence; policy responsiveness; Eurobarometer 54.2, 56.1, 67.3, 69.1, 72.3, 73.1, 74.1, 76.2, 77.1; Flash Eurobarometer 114, 253, 388; International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1999, 2003, 2006; European Election Study (EES) 2009; European Values Study (EVS) 4; European Social Survey (ESS) 1
Document language
English
Publication Year
2019
Page/Pages
p. 412-434
Journal
European Journal of Political Research, 58 (2019) 2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12286
ISSN
1475-6765
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0