Consistency between Public Preferences and National Policy Decisions

While the importance of the question of how often American policy decisions are in agree ment with the preferences of the mass public is clear, there have been only a few limited attempts to provide an empirical answer. The research reported here uses available pub lished national survey results and compares them with policy outcomes. Overall, about two-thirds of the cases demonstrate consistency between public opinion and public policy. There is some variation in consistency among areas of substantive policy, most notably that foreign policy decisions are more often consistent with public preference than domes tic policies. The key factor limiting the extent of consistency appears to be the failure of the political system, particularly the legislative branch, to act quickly on proposals for policy change.