Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T16:08:51.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Systematically Biased Beliefs about Political Influence: Evidence from the Perceptions of Political Influence on Policy Outcomes Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2013

Bryan Caplan ,
Eric Crampton ,
Wayne A. Grove  and
Ilya Somin
Bryan Caplan
Affiliation:
George Mason University
Eric Crampton
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
Wayne A. Grove
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
Ilya Somin
Affiliation:
George Mason University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many scholars argue that retrospective voting is a powerful information shortcut that offsets widespread voter ignorance. Even deeply ignorant voters, it is claimed, can effectively punish incumbents for bad performance and reward them if things go well. But if voters' understanding of which officials are responsible for which outcomes is systematically biased, retrospective voting becomes an independent source of political failure rather than a cure for it. We design and administer a new survey of the general public and political experts to test for such biases. Our analysis reveals frequent, large, robust biases in voter attributions of responsibility for a variety of political actors and outcomes with a tendency for the public to overestimate influence, although important examples of underestimation also exist.

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 760 - 767
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Achen, Christopher, and Bartels, Larry. 2004. “Musical Chairs: Pocketbook Voting and the Limits of Democratic Accountability.” Working Paper, Princeton University. Google Scholar
Achen, Christopher, and Bartels, Larry. 2008. “Myopic Retrospection and Party Realignment in the Great Depression.” Working Paper, Princeton University. Google Scholar
Albouy, David. 2011. “Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? A New Perspective, with Evidence from the U.S. Senate.” Electoral Studies 30 (1): 162–73.Google Scholar
Althaus, Scott. 2003. Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Cameron. 2006. “Economic Voting and Multilevel Governance: A Comparative Individual-Level Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (2): 449–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin. 2006. “The Federal Face of Voting: Are Elected Officials Held Accountable for the Functions Relevant to Their Office?” Political Psychology 27 (5): 731–54.Google Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin, and Stein, Robert. 2006. “Who is Held Responsible When Disaster Strikes? The Attribution of Responsibility for a Natural Disaster in an Urban Election.” Journal of Urban Affairs 28 (1): 43–53.Google Scholar
Atkeson, Lonna, and Partin, Randall. 1995. “Economic and Referendum Voting: A Comparison of Gubernatorial and Senatorial Elections.” American Political Science Review 89(1): 99–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2002. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior 24 (2): 117–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2010. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Caplan, Bryan. 2007. The Myth of the Rational Voter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cutler, Fred. 2004. “Government Responsibility and Electoral Accountability in Federations.” Publius 34 (2): 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, Fred. 2008. “Whodunnit? Voters and Responsibility in Canadian Federalism.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 627–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Gordon, and Ransom, Michael. 1999. “Does Where You Stand Depend on Where You Sit?” American Economic Review 89 (4): 703–27.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 2002. How Democratic Is the American Constitution? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Keeter, Scott. 1996. What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dixit, Avinash. 2002. “Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretive Review.” Journal of Human Resources 37 (4): 626–727.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American Presidential Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gasper, John, and Reeves, Andrew. 2011. “Make It Rain? Retrospection and the Attentive Electorate in the Context of Natural Disasters.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2): 340–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbons, Robert. 2005. “Incentives Between Firms (and Within).” Management Science 51 (1): 2–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Susan. 1999. “‘Life Is Not Fair’: Governors' Job Performance Ratings and State Economies.” Political Research Quarterly 52 (1): 167–88.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Malhotra, Neil. 2009. “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy.” American Political Science Review 103 (3): 387–406 Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, Malhotra, Neil, and Mo, Cecilia Hyunjung. 2010. “Irrelevant Events Affect Voters' Evaluations of Government Performance.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (29): 12804–09.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University. 1995. “National Survey of Public Knowledge of Welfare Reform and the Federal Budget.” January 12, #1001. Google Scholar
Kraus, Nancy, Malmfors, Torbjörn, and Slovic, Paul. 1992. “Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks.” Risk Analysis 12 (2): 215–32.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur, and Sunstein, Cass. 1999. “Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation.” Stanford Law Review 51 (4): 683–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leigh, Andrew. 2009. “Does the World Economy Swing National Elections?” Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 71 (2): 163–81.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael. 1997. “Who's the Chef? Economic Voting under a Dual Executive.” European Journal of Political Research 31: 315–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael, and Stegmaier, Mary. 2000. “Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes.” Annual Review of Political Science 3: 183–219.Google Scholar
Leyden, Kevin, and Borrelli, Stephen. 1995. “The Effect of State Economic Conditions on Gubernatorial Elections: Does Unified Government Make a Difference?” Political Research Quarterly 48 (2): 275–90.Google Scholar
Lichter, S. Robert, and Rothman, Stanley. 1999. Environmental Cancer—A Political Disease? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Marsh, Michael, and Tilley, James. 2009. “The Attribution of Credit and Blame to Governments and Its Impact on Vote Choice.” British Journal of Political Science 40: 115–34.Google Scholar
Powell, G., and Whitten, Guy. 1993. “A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context” American Journal of Political Science 37 (2): 391–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas. 2003a. “Institutional Context and the Assignment of Political Responsibility.” Journal of Politics 65 (1): 190–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas. 2003b. “Who's Responsible for the Economy? The Formation and Consequences of Responsibility Attributions.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (4): 698–713.Google Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas. 2006. “Triangulating Political Responsibility: The Motivated Formation of Responsibility Judgments.” Political Psychology 27 (1): 99–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas, and Grant, J.. 2002. “An Attributional Model of Economic Voting: Evidence from the 2000 Presidential Election.” Political Research Quarterly 55 (4): 805–23.Google Scholar
Smith, Alastair. 1996. “Diversionary Foreign Policy in Democratic Systems.” International Studies Quarterly 40 (1): 133–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somin, Ilya. Forthcoming. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfers, Justin. 2011. “Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections.” Working Paper, University of Pennsylvania. Google Scholar