Why Estimates of the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy are Too High: Empirical and Theoretical Implications

Statistical studies often show public opinion strongly affecting public policy. But the studies may overestimate the effect because they focus on issues — those especially important to the public — on which governments are most likely to be responsive. This article considers what the opinion-policy linkage would be if less-important issues were also considered, by examining a random sample of proposals addressed by the U.S. Congress. Opinion has considerably less impact in the random sample than in the statistical studies. But this does not mean that the public is being defeated by special interests. On many issues, the public has no meaningful opinions; organized interests, therefore, can win without the public losing. Democracy is most often defined as a set of procedures and institutions intended to make the holders of political power responsible to broadly inclusive electorates (Dahl 1989: ch. 15; Markoff 1999). Historically it has been the product of many groups ' struggles to win influence over government for themselves, and fairly often, for the broader public as well (e.g., Markoff 1996; Rueschemeyer, Huber and Stephens 1992). Democracy is often evaluated by how