Politicians don’t care what you think
If you ever feel that your policy preferences are ignored by your representatives, well, it isn’t just you. The U.S. has a political responsiveness problem, and there is empirical evidence showing as much.
In a classic 2014 study on political responsiveness in the U.S., Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page built a dataset of 1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked views on a proposed policy change. They were interested in how often the views of the “average citizen” were reflected in the policy outcome. And it turns out, not too often. When the average citizen’s views align with the views of elites, then the average citizen could get a policy win. But when the average views did not align with those of elites and interest groups, the views of the average voter were ignored by the policy process: “When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy” (p. 575).
Their data shows that a big part of the problem is political gridlock: “our evidence indicates that the responsiveness of the U.S. political system when the general public wants government action is severely limited.” It is more likely for a majority that opposes a change to get its way, “but when a majority—even a very large majority—of the public favors change, it is not likely to get what it wants.”
These are huge problems for the U.S. system of democracy. If the preferences of the average citizen are being ignored, and gridlock is preventing policy changes that even very large majorities support, the electoral system is not functioning properly. Gilens and Page arrive at a similar conclusion in their study: “we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened” (p. 577).
Political competition can help
More political competition can make an electoral system more responsive to the policy preferences of the electoral.
Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess published a compelling study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2002 that used evidence from elections in India to show which factors enable citizens to have their preferences reflected in policy. They used data from the sixteen major Indian states for the period 1958-1992 to show that state governments are more responsive to falls in food production and crop flood damage where newspaper circulation is higher and electoral accountability is greater. Political competition is one of the key factors that made politicians more accountable to the needs of the electorate:
We find here that, for a given fall in food production or level of flood damage, having greater political competition leads to greater public food distribution and calamity relief. Consistent with the theory, greater political competition is associated with increased government responsiveness.
(Besley and Burgess, p. 1441)
This result makes a great deal of sense, and is consistent with a simple theoretical model that the authors propose. Basically, voters need to have enough electoral power to swing electoral outcomes when politicians are responsive to their demands. Voters have more electoral power “when electoral turnout is high and political competition is intense.” (p. 1416)
Plenty of evidence indicates that political competitiveness matters for government responsiveness in the United States as well. Thomas Holbrook and Emily van Dunk (1993) discuss measures of political competitiveness in the U.S. and implications for the link to state government responsiveness. Valdimer Orlando Key Jr.’s deep examination in Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949) is also consistent with these ideas on the importance of political competitiveness for policy influence of the electorate.
All of this evidence highlights the urgency of reforms aimed at increasing political competitiveness. We can spend a great deal of time and effort carefully studying various policy problems and finding good solutions, or persuading others for certain ideas over others. But none of that effort really pays off if the political system is not responsive to voters preferences anyway. Meaningful policy changes need to start with meaningful changes to the electoral system.
References
Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page (2014). “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12:3, 564-581.
Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess (2002). “The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117:4, 1415–1451.
Thomas M. Holbrook and Emily Van Dunk (1993). “Electoral Competition in the American States.” The American Political Science Review 87:4, 955-962.
Vladimir O. Key Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1950).