Ideology and information in policymaking

We consider how the incentives for politicians to pander to public opinion depend on preference heterogeneity and information. Politicians are more likely to pander on issues where politicians’ preferences are divided than on issues where there is a clear majority view. As pandering involves ignoring socially valuable information that goes against the ex ante preferred action of the majority, an increase in the ex ante probability that a politician may hold a minority view can then lead to policy outcomes more biased towards the action ex ante preferred by the majority. In addition, because the updating about the politician’s type is dampened when the voters are uncertain about the state of the world, politicians are more likely to pander when voters are more informed about which action is in their interest. It is then possible that increasing the information available to the voters, by increasing the likelihood of pandering by politicians, can make all voters worse off.