{"id":15210,"date":"2018-05-13T07:51:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T07:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=15210"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:59:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:59:21","slug":"people-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/people-power\/","title":{"rendered":"People power"},"content":{"rendered":"

State-level policy in the U.S. is responsive to public opinion, study shows.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
A new study co-authored by an MIT political scientist shows that state policies in the U.S. from 1936 through 2014 have been responsive to public opinion \u2014 and have become even more aligned with it in recent decades.
Illustration: Christine Daniloff\/MIT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAMBRIDGE, MA — In politics, your voices make a difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

At least at the state level of U.S. politics, that is. A new study co-authored by an MIT political scientist shows that state policies in the U.S. from 1936 through 2014 have been responsive to public opinion \u2014 and have become even more aligned with it in recent decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cResponsiveness to public opinion has grown over time,\u201d says Devin Caughey, an associate professor of political science at MIT and co-author of a newly published paper detailing the findings.<\/span><\/p>\n

And while the existence of a clear relationship between public sentiment and policy might be \u201csort of surprising\u201d to some observers, Caughey adds, \u201cIf you didn\u2019t find any responsiveness at all, it would be pretty concerning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The study turned up a number of related findings as well. State-level government responsiveness to public opinion has varied across regions in recent decades; is stronger outside the South; and does not seem to derive directly from structural reforms to government. Policy changes tend not to happen quickly, either, the researchers observed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLarge policy shifts are the result of the cumulation of incremental responsiveness over many years,\u201d the authors write in the paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

The paper, \u201cPolicy Preferences and Policy Changes: Dynamic Responsiveness in the American States, 1936\u00ad\u20132014,\u201d appears in the May issue of the\u00a0American Political Science Review.<\/em>\u00a0The authors are Caughey and Christopher Warshaw, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eight decades, 300 issues<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To conduct the research, Caughey and Warshaw drew on a dataset they constructed containing about 1.5 million individual citizens\u2019 answers to polling questions regarding more than 300 policy issues, from 1936 through 2014. The scholars made a distinction in the study between economic and social issues, given that states have \u201cless policymaking discretion on economic issues.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The economic issues cover areas such as social benefits, taxes, labor laws, and environmental regulations, while social policy matters include women\u2019s rights, gay rights, abortion restrictions, and religious matters, among other things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at the trends in state-level politics over the study\u2019s time period, a key inflection point appears to be the early 1970s, a period after which the governmental response to shifts in opinion appears to be much more pronounced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn both social and economic issues, dynamic responsiveness appears to be stronger after 1972,\u201d the authors write in the paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this varies across regions of the U.S., with different policymaking trajectories in different parts of the country. Governmental responsiveness has been higher outside of the South since the 1970s, for instance, especially on economic issues. Prior to the 1970s, both the South and other regions were equally responsive \u2014 or unresponsive, as the case may be \u2014 to public opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

This also suggests a \u201cpuzzling finding\u201d arising from the data, as the scholars note: Policymaking responsiveness did not seem drastically altered by the political reforms in the South in the 1960s, including expanded voting rights, the elimination of poll taxes, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the whole, we find little evidence that any of the institutions we consider moderate the effect of opinion on policy\u201d in the South since the 1970s, the authors write, adding that \u201c[t]his is clearly an area where more research is needed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Adaptation, not selection<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The paper is the latest publication stemming from a roughly five-year research effort by Caughey and Warshaw that has examined state-level policymaking from 1936\u20132014. Previous papers in the series have examined, among other things, whether or not state-level policy has shifted at all, in ideological terms.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research was assisted by a team of students in MIT\u2019s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), who performed data collection work. Warshaw was also a professor at MIT when much of the project was completed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence from the study does support one relatively contrarian idea: That the changes in state policies are not primarily caused by changes in party control of state governments. In political science terms, this means the changes in policy are not so much driven by \u201cselection\u201d \u2014 of officials from parties \u2014 but \u201cadaptation\u201d to public opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t find much evidence that [responsiveness] was channeled through turnover in parties,\u201d Caughey says. That runs contrary to the views of some other political scientists, and possibly runs counter to the popular perception of partisan state-level politics today.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Caughey notes that a few well-publicized cases of states shifting direction after a change in party control do not outweigh the bulk of other cases. And the study\u2019s findings also suggest that even when parties have a solid grip on power, they are still listening to what voters think.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven if there\u2019s no change in party control, incumbent officials are paying attention to what voters want and are adapting on the margins to changes in public opinion,\u201d Caughey says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The study received research support from the dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State-level policy in the U.S. is responsive to public opinion, study shows.\u00a0 CAMBRIDGE, MA — In politics, your voices make a difference. At least at the state level of U.S. politics, that is. A new study co-authored by an MIT political scientist shows that state policies in the U.S. from 1936 through 2014 have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22,17,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-other","category-research","category-social-science"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",600,400,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",600,400,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",540,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",639,426,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MIT-State-Policies_0.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Economics<\/a> Other<\/a> Research<\/a> Social Science<\/a>","tag_info":"Social Science","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}