IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v48y2004i4p690-706.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Conditional Nature of Presidential Responsiveness to Public Opinion

Author

Listed:
  • Brandice Canes‐Wrone
  • Kenneth W. Shotts

Abstract

How does public opinion affect presidential policymaking? We address this issue by testing a diverse set of hypotheses with data concerning a set of individual policies across time. In particular, the data revolve around presidential budgetary proposals on a set of major policy issues for which there are recurring surveys on citizens' preferences over spending. The analysis suggests that presidents are more responsive to mass opinion on issues that are familiar to citizens in their everyday lives. Also, for reelection‐seeking presidents, responsiveness is shown to depend upon two key political factors. First, presidents are more responsive to public opinion when the next election is imminent. Second, the effect of presidential popularity is nonmonotonic; presidents with average approval ratings are most likely to adopt policy positions congruent with public opinion, whereas presidents with approval ratings that are significantly above or below average have the greatest propensity to take unpopular positions.

Suggested Citation

  • Brandice Canes‐Wrone & Kenneth W. Shotts, 2004. "The Conditional Nature of Presidential Responsiveness to Public Opinion," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 690-706, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:48:y:2004:i:4:p:690-706
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00096.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00096.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00096.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Corazzini & Sebastian Kube & Michel André Maréchal & Antonio Nicolò, 2014. "Elections and Deceptions: An Experimental Study on the Behavioral Effects of Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(3), pages 579-592, July.
    2. René Lindstädt & Ryan Wielen, 2011. "Timely shirking: time-dependent monitoring and its effects on legislative behavior in the U.S. Senate," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 119-148, July.
    3. Thiemo Fetzer & Carlo Schwarz, 2021. "Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1717-1741.
    4. Meng, Tianguang & Su, Zheng, 2021. "When top-down meets bottom-up: Local officials and selective responsiveness within fiscal policymaking in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    5. Laron K. Williams & David J. Brulé & Michael Koch, 2010. "War Voting," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 27(5), pages 442-460, November.
    6. Alrik Thiem, 2016. "Analyzing multilevel data with QCA: yet another straightforward procedure," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 121-128, January.
    7. Luca Corazzini, Sebastian Kube, Michel André Maréchal, 2007. "Towards a Behavioral Public Choice: Guilt-Aversion and Accountability in the Lab," ISLA Working Papers 27, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    8. Kimiko Terai, 2009. "Electoral control over policy-motivated candidates and their policy biases," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 43-64, January.
    9. Christopher Wratil, 2018. "Modes of government responsiveness in the European Union: Evidence from Council negotiation positions," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(1), pages 52-74, March.
    10. Vlaicu, Razvan & Whalley, Alexander, 2016. "Hierarchical accountability in government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 85-99.
    11. J. S. Maloy, 2014. "Linkages of Electoral Accountability: Empirical Results and Methodological Lessons," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(2), pages 13-27.
    12. Massimo Morelli & Richard Van Weelden, 2013. "Ideology and information in policymaking," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(3), pages 412-439, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:48:y:2004:i:4:p:690-706. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.