Citizen Mistrust

“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” (Mark Twain)

“The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly,' meaning 'many,' and the word

'ticks,' meaning 'blood sucking parasites.' (Larry Hardiman)

Measuring Political Trust (ANES)

1. How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right – just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?

2. Do you think that people in the government waste a lot of the money

we pay in taxes, waste some of it, or don’t waste very much of it? 3. Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big

interests looking out for themselves, or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?

4. Do you think that quite a few of the people running the government

are crooked, not very many are, or do you think hardly any of them are crooked at all?

Trust government just about always/most of the time vs. some of the time/never. http://www.people-press.org/2013/01/31/trust-in-government-interactive/

What, Exactly, Does “Political (Mis)Trust” Mean?

A Traditional View (David Easton) Two types of support (positive or negative): diffuse specific

Three objects toward which that support might be directed: political community regime/rules of the game incumbent authorities

In principle, either type of support can be directed at any of the three objects.

In practice, researchers have focused mainly on diffuse support for the system as a whole, or for the

constitutional order/rules of the game (incl. democratic norms in the United States); and

specific support for particular institutions and esp. leaders or their policies

Diffuse support is said to represent an “attachment to political objects for their own sake,” i.e., support that is “not easily dislodged because of current dissatisfaction with” government outputs or performance.

However, "not easily" doesn't mean "never" even for Easton (for

whom diffuse support is usually learned during childhood and fairly stable thereafter). When people become unhappy with the performance of a particular set of leaders, they initially withdraw their (specific) support for those leaders or for particular insti-tutions – something that may lead to the election of new leaders and widespread demands for a change in policy direction.

But if dissatisfaction with the government's performance continues over a long enough period of time, and especially if grievances build up to the point where people start to believe that the problem is rooted in the system itself, then diffuse support may be threatened – and the potential for political upheaval and system change increases accordingly because "throwing the rascals out" no longer seems likely to do much good.

That’s what some people believed was happening in the ‘60s and

‘70s with race riots, antiwar protest (and occasional violence), the apparent breakdown of social order (crime/the “law and order” issue) and traditional values (women’s lib), and an economy that was bouncing all over the place (including stagflation in the late ‘70s) and seemed at times to be held hostage by Arab sheiks who controlled the flow of oil.

The people who believed this were wrong. But . . . after 30-plus additional years of popular frustration (and what appears to be growing anger directed at government), there are those who think that it may finally be happening today.

Is it? We know that levels of “trust in government,” as that concept is

usually measured, have dropped sharply over the years. What we still don’t know for sure is what that means, and what the likely consequences of low trust are (or will be in the future).

Before taking this any further, let me make one more distinction. There

are at least two different types of expectations that citizens have for their governmental leaders and institutions:

that they will deliver a technically competent job performance; and that they will carry out their fiduciary obligations and responsibilities, i.e.,

when necessary, place other’s interests above their own.

Note that two of the ANES questions (trustdc, waste money) seem to focus more on people’s beliefs about technical competence, while the others (big interests, crooked) capture the fiduciary obligation aspect of trust.

The initial post-1964 drop in public trust may have had more to do

with the technical competence dimension (or so some scholars think). There is little doubt, however, that over time Americans have come to hold more negative beliefs about their political leaders in both areas.

So how negative are people today about government? Some of my favorite examples:

43% of likely voters said that a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job ad-dressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress (38% disagree, 19% not sure) – Rasmussen Reports, February 2012

asked to “describe the federal government in one word or phrase,” 72% of Americans gave a negative response (too big, confused, corrupt, generally incompetent, etc.) vs. 10% positive and 18% neutral or mixed – USA Today/Gallup Poll, October 2010

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/ chart-of-the-day-things-that-are-more-popular-than-congress.php?ref=fpb

More than 40 years ago, political scientist Jack Citrin (APSR 1968) argued that there were three types of political cynics:

ritualistic cynics, who gave cynical answers to survey questions

simply to conform to social norms of skepticism; partisan cynics, who just didn’t like the current incumbents; alienated cynics, who were genuinely disaffected from

government.

Although Citrin could not say how many Americans fell into the three camps (you need to ask specific questions that are designed to do this), the importance of partisanship was/is clear.

Pew Research Center, 2010. Notice how the partisan gap has grown over time. Luke Keele, “The Authorities Really Do Matter: Party Control and Trust in Government,” Journal of Politics (August 2005).* -- Whereas partisans are more likely than independents to exhibit high levels of trust, they are especially likely to do so when their party is in control of government.

Political Trust through a Partisan Lens

http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/15/state-govermnents- viewed-favorably-as-federal-rating-hits-new-low/

Another perspective on the growing gap between Ds and Rs:

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2011/04/14/the_partisan_trust_gap/; data points are individual polls, based on the absolute difference between the proportion of each group of partisans who say that government can be trusted all or most of the time.

At the same time, trust levels are lower today than they used to be for both groups of partisans (and for independents) . . .

http://www.people-press.org/2013/01/31/trust-in-government-interactive/

. . . and nobody seems to have much confidence in government at the moment.

Pew Research Center, 2013

Looking at declining trust in the 1960s and 1970s, Citrin said that the solution (for those who were not ritual cynics or hard-core partisans) was for government to produce better results – esp. with regard to the economy. Here is some evidence that results (valence issues) do matter:

Pew Research Center, 2010. Note that the low points in trust coincide with the economic struggles of the late ‘70s, early ‘90s, and the current period; some recovery occurred when the economy performed well in the late ‘80s and late ‘90s. Still, there are occasions when the two trend lines diverge.

Technical Competence (Results) or Fiduciary Obligations?

Pew Research Center, 2010. Note how much larger the partisan gap is in 2010 compared to 1997 – Democratic presidents in both cases, though Republicans controlled Congress in ‘97.

Fiduciary Obligations . . . and Ideology/Partisanship?

Pew Research Center, 2010

Pew Research Center, 2010

The Importance of Process

1993 1995 2002

Craig: Performance matters (a lot) but . . . if Easton and others are correct in asserting that it is not “the results of authoritative actions that count so much as the processes which lead to such results,” then one source of contemporary discontent may have to do with the belief that governmental decision makers are less attentive than they should be to the needs and wishes of ordinary citizens. Research shows that people will often accept a decision/outcome that is against their interests if they believe it was arrived at fairly. In fact . . .

Although democratic values (including the norm of citizen input and

governmental responsiveness) have long been widely shared in the United States, they became an even more salient element of our political culture following WWII – and, as a result, the gap between citizen’ procedural expectations and perceived responsiveness grew wider (e.g., due to rising education, cultural/political change).

However: Saying that government needs to be more responsive doesn't solve the problem. In part, this is because of the same "eye of the beholder" factor that applies to Citrin’s argument about performance/ results, i.e., actions that satisfy some groups will not satisfy all (and may leave some feeling more excluded than they already do). But there are certain things about which most of us – whether liberal, conservative, or in between – may be able to agree.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (1995): that the negative feelings that many

Americans feel toward Congress have to do with process concerns, e.g., they are dissatisfied with partisan bickering (implying a desire for more cooperation and compromise), the clash of competing interests (though that’s essentially what democracy is), and the tendency for members to lose touch (or to be perceived as having lost touch) with the people who elected them.

Hibbing and Thiess-Morse (2002; APSR 2001**): analysis is based on focus groups and a national survey done in 1998. In the survey . . .

Respondents were asked to rate both themselves and "the recent policies

of the national government" (as well as of both parties) on the 7-point liberal-conservative scale. Most placed themselves in the middle with a slight tilt to the conservative side – while placing government policies only slightly further to the left (mean of 4.0 vs. 4.4 for preferences). This seems odd in light of the frequently heard complaint that government has grown out of touch with the needs and wants of its citizens.

But guess what . . . widespread policy dissatisfaction is not really what

contemporary popular discontent is all about (or at least not what it was about in the late 1990s).

Same survey: Respondents were asked to indicate their perceptions of how the government currently functions, in terms of a 7-point continuum anchored by the two extremes of (a) ordinary people deciding for themselves what needs to be done and how; vs. (b) ordinary people are too busy and should allow elected officials and bureaucrats to make all political decisions – and to do the same for “how you think government should work.”

It turns out that the process gap was much wider than the policy gap

(mean of 5.4 for how government currently functions, 3.9 for how it should function). So . . . when people complained about government being out of touch, their grievances apparently had more to do with the how than with the what. Also, respondents placed both parties toward the unresponsive end of the continuum, with little difference between them.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, “Process Preferences and American Politics: What the People Want Government to Be,” American Political Science Review (2001).**

The Importance of Process: Polarization

Let’s assume that heightened elite polarization has contributed to an inability of government to solve the problems that people care about

(Citrin’s “results”); a messier decision-making process marked by even more conflict and less

cooperation than in the past (referring to style, not substance); and partly as a function of the above, fewer people believing that government

truly cares what the public wants. Can we therefore conclude that polarization has contributed directly to

the low levels of public trust in government evident today? “There is evidence . . . that rising polarization is one of the forces

contributing to sharply declining trust in government.” William Galston (Brookings Institution) Well . . .

Problem #1: The initial decline in trust precedes the increase in polarization. Problem #2: Trust goes up and down over time. Since about 1980, polarization goes only up. (John Sides) http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2010/04/30/let_me_save_clive_crook_the_tr/

First figure: The linear fit (orange) shows a modest relationship with lots of outliers. The non- linear fit (gray) is better, but suggests that a modest increase in polarization led to a huge initial drop in trust – but somehow the remaining increase (i.e., the last 30 years or so) had no effect on trust. Does this make sense? Second figure: Shows a fairly robust linear relationship between economic conditions and trust. When trust is regressed on polarization and economic growth, the effect of growth is both substantively and statistically significant – while that of polarization is neither. Conclusion: Polarization per se is not what has driven trust down – poor performance, a perceived lack of responsiveness, and a decision making process that often produces stalemate are more likely culprits. But polarization may be helping to keep trust levels low by influencing these other factors.

Some impressionistic evidence: Focus groups and other research by the Kettering Foundation suggest

that, in the past, people generally felt that politicians entered the political arena with mostly good intentions – to work on behalf of the public and for the public good. If politicians became corrupt or unethical, it was because they were victims of a political system that pushed them into situations because of the money required to succeed (cf. The Malevolent Leaders).

Kettering research these days shows something different: The public

perceives that many, if not most politicians enter politics to pursue personal gain and further their own agendas. They don’t get caught up in the system; they bring with them a culture of greed, corruption and disregard for the general good in order to enrich or empower themselves.

Note two different ideas at work here: fiduciary obligations (honesty,

serve the public) and polarization/gridlock. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/29/3696266/polarized-politics-and-lagging.html

Politicians, Campaigns, and the Media

Robert A. Jackson et al., “Examining the Possible Corrosive Impact of Negative Advertising on Citizens' Attitudes toward Politics,” Political Research Quarterly (2009).

Contrary to some early studies, there is no evidence that exposure to negative ads (measured w/data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project) has an adverse effect on trust, efficacy, or other types of evaluations of governmental leaders and institutions.

Deborah Jordan Brooks and John G. Geer, "Beyond Negativity: The Effects

of Incivility on the Electorate," American Journal of Political Science (2007). Distinguishes between positive campaign messages, civil negative messages, and uncivil negative messages, and between all three of these as they deal with issues vs. traits. Uncivil negative messages, in particular, appear to increase (slightly) overall political interest and intent to vote – but have no effect on feelings of trust or efficacy.

Diana C. Mutz and Byron Reeves, “The New Videomalaise: Effects of Televised Incivility on Political Trust,” American Political Science Review (2005).**

Trust (in politicians, Congress, and the political system) was significantly influence in a negative direction by exposure to an “uncivil” exchange be-tween two alleged candidates for Congress. Effects did not last very long, but this does not take into account the cumulative impact of exposure.

Richard Forgette and Jonathan S. Morris, “High-Conflict Television News

and Public Opinion,” Political Research Quarterly (2006).* Experiment w/undergrads done the day after Bush’s State of the Union

address in 2003. Following a video of the speech, subjects watched either CNN’s Crossfire (high uncivil conflict) or CNN’s Inside Politics (resembling a traditional news broadcast, including interviews with leaders from both parties). Those who watched Crossfire were less likely to give either the president or Congress a high approval rating, less likely to trust them to do the right thing, more likely to assess negatively both parties in Congress, and less likely to approve of the job being done by the federal government as a whole.

A More Intense Kind of Mistrust? Dissatisfaction + Anger?

Pew Research Center, 2013

An Erosion of Diffuse Support? Or of Specific Support for the Regime and Constitutional Rules of the Game?

Pew Research Center, 2010/2013

A Dissenting View

Timothy E. Cook and Paul Gronke, “The Skeptical American: Revisiting the Meanings of Trust in Government and Confidence in Institutions,” Journal of Politics (2005).**

Also see: Paul Gronke, James Hicks, and Timothy E. Cook, “Trust but Verify:

Three Lenses on Americans’ Trust in Government,” in Under-standing Public Opinion, 3rd ed., edited by Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox (2010).

The decline of political trust and institutional confidence (as those

things are typically measured) is an empirical fact – but we still know little about either the origins or the meaning of that decline.

The decline of political trust and institutional confidence (as those things are typically measured) is an empirical fact – but we still know little about either the origins or the meaning of that decline.

“Rather than an overarching crisis of confidence, we see a moderate fall in

levels of trust focused on some branches of government and institutions of ‘opposition.’ . . . [C]hanges over time are best explained as reasoned responses to altered political, economic, and social conditions – which if changed again could just as easily push levels of trust and confidence back up. The public decline in trust is a rational response and not, as often portrayed, a knee-jerk emotional reaction” (p. 201 in N-W).

More than one argument is being made here. Can’t the loss of trust be

both a rational response to poor governmental performance (substan-tively, procedurally) and a development that is at least potentially more serious than these authors seem to believe?

Measuring Political Trust Jack Citrin: Believing that government wastes “a lot” of money, can be

trusted to do what is right “only some of the time,” includes “quite a few” people who are crooked or “don’t know what they’re doing” (as opposed to being “smart”; this is an original ANES question that is no longer used) hardly bespeaks a deep-seated hostility toward the political system.

Cook-Gronke’s supposedly improved measure of what they call “active

trust/mistrust”: Respondents are asked to place themselves along a scale from 0 to 10 (with 5 as the midpoint, indicating neither trust nor mistrust), where 10 represents “trust government to do what is right” and 0 repre-sents “distrust government to do what is wrong.”

Craig’s adaptation of Cook-Gronke: “People have different views about

how well government works. Imagine a scale with scores ranging from zero through 10, where ‘0’ means that government can almost always be counted on to do the wrong thing, ‘10’ means that government can almost always be counted on to do the right thing, and ‘5’ means that government is right about half of the time and wrong the other half. Where on this scale would you place yourself?”

Gronke et al., p. 204; data from March 2002, shortly after 9/11 (LSU national survey). Conclusion: Few respondents were actively distrustful: 23 percent scored below the midpoint, 28 percent scored at the midpoint, and the rest were above the midpoint; 40 percent answered 6, 7, or 8. The vast majority did not expect government to do something wrong.

Gronke et al., p. 204; data from November 2006 (Cooperative Congressional Election Study. Conclusion: Attitudes toward government had worsened significantly since 2002: over 50 percent scored below the midpoint (10 percent at 0, over a quarter at 0, 1, or 2), less than 10 percent answered 8, 9, or 10.

Nevertheless, mistrust (lack of confidence) is not directed equally at all elements of the national government . . .

Gronke et al., p. 207. Question wording: “As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, how much confidence would you say you have in them – a great deal, some, or hardly any confidence at all.” Cf. the Results of a 2011 Vanderbilt poll of Tennesseans: while just 15% said they trusted “the government in Wash- ington” to do what is right, the percentages were higher for specific federal agencies, e.g., 38% for both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency, 49% for the Department of Defense.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157685/americans-trust-judicial-branch-legislative-least.aspx Trend line through September 2012.

. . . nor is it directed equally at all major institutions of society.

Gronke et al., p. 208.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/losing-faith-in-american-institutions/ http://www.gallup.com/poll/155258/Confidence-Public-Schools-New-Low.aspx Data are from Gallup 1973-2012. While the overall trend is mostly down, there are some exceptions, esp. the military.

Putting everything together:

Gronke et al., p. 210: Factor analysis → institutions of government (the three branches), institutions of order (banks, business, religion, medicine, science, the military), and institutions of opposition (education, labor unions, the press, television). The public has retained fairly high confidence in the institutions of order, lost considerable confidence in the institutions of opposition, and gives or withholds confidence in government in response to short-term events.

And then there is this:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157700/trust-state-local-governments.aspx Trend through September 2012. Remember (above): different question wording/response categories than ANES.

http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/15/state-govermnents-viewed-favorably-as-federal-rating-hits-new-low/

Pew Research Center, 2010

On the other hand, maybe mistrust (lack of confidence) is not only deepening but widening in recent years . . .

. . . even though many people seem to recognize that the job of government is harder today than it used to be.

Pew Research Center, 2010

Consequences of Mistrust Marc J. Hetherington, Why Trust Matters: Declining Trust and the Demise of

American Liberalism (2005).* American public policy has become demonstrably more conservative since

the 1960s, even in the absence of a comparable rightward shift in public opinion (remember: operational liberalism generally, fluctuations in spending preferences and overall public mood; Stimson, Ellis-Stimson, Wlezien).

According to Hetherington, one reason for this is the loss of trust: As people

lost faith in the federal government, the delivery system for most progressive policies, they expressed less support for progressive ideas (esp. redistributive programs). Trust therefore acted as a simple heuristic that helped people to decide whether to support or (more often than in the past) oppose additional spending in a policy domain, e.g., opposition to health care reform grew in the ‘90s because those who felt they could afford coverage worried that a large new federal bureaucracy would make things worse for them. Although 9/11 increased levels of trust as public attention focused on national security, the effect was temporary.

Joshua J. Dyck, “Political Distrust and Conservative Voting in Ballot Measure Elections,” Political Research Quarterly (2010).*

Carrying this argument a step further, Dyck hypothesizes that conserva-

tive voting in ballot initiative elections (esp. on matters of tax-and-spend policy) will be more common among those who have little confidence in what Hetherington calls the “delivery system” for government services.

Data from a series of California surveys conducted between 1998-2006

show that distrust of state government (which was weakly or unrelated to party and ideological ID) consistently predicted conservative voting on issues relating to taxing, spending, bonds (e.g., to provide money for infrastructure, transportation, housing, education), and some other matters (e.g., increased time to tenure for teachers, requiring unions to get permission from members before using dues for political purposes) – but ideology and partisanship mattered more on social issues such as gay marriage and school vouchers.

note: trust is mostly unrelated to vote choice in candidate elections

Thomas J. Rudolph and Jillian Evans, “Political Trust, Ideology, and Public Support for Government Spending,” American Journal of Political Science (2005).*

The utility of the trust heuristic is said to vary across situational contexts,

i.e., it is most likely to be activated when people are asked to sacrifice their own material interests for the advancement of political minorities – something that happens more with redistributive policies (costs widely distributed, benefits narrowly concentrated) than with distributive ones (costs and benefits universally distributed).

Hetherington shows this to be the case with race-targeted initiatives such

as affirmative action, education quotas, and government aid to blacks (trust → policy views less strongly among those not required to sacrifice: members of beneficiary groups). The argument is extended here to include sacrifice of ideological principles (required of conservatives re both distributive and redistributive policies). Annenberg data from 2000 indicate that (a) trust has no impact on support for government spending among liberals in 7 of 8 policy areas, while (b) higher trust is associated with increased support for spending among conservatives in 6 of 8 areas.

Thomas J. Rudolph, “Political Trust, Ideology, and Public Support for Tax Cuts” Public Opinion Quarterly (2009).

Going the other way, higher trust increased support for Bush-era tax cuts only among self-identified liberals (cf. ideological sacrifice).

Thomas J. Rudolph and Elizabeth Popp, “Bridging the Ideological Divide:

Trust and Support for Social Security Privatization,” Political Behavior (2009).

Similarly, in ‘02 and ‘04 surveys, higher trust was associated with support for Social Security privatization only among liberals.

Elizabeth Popp and Thomas J. Rudolph, “A Tale of Two Ideologies:

Explaining Public Support for Economic Interventions,” Journal of Politics (2011).* [in week #4]

National survey experiment: High trust increased support for the post-election 2008 “Obama” economic recovery plan among all groups except consistent (symbolic + operational) liberals, who were mostly on board with it anyway, and for the “Bush” plan among all groups except conflicted conservatives (same thing).

Marc J. Hetherington, “How Trust Matters: The Changing Political Rele-vance of Political Trust,” American Journal of Political Science (2012).**

People often are ambivalent in their attitudes about an issue or object

(such as “the government in Washington”) and, as a result, the evaluative criteria they use can be primed by events or by media coverage of those events. The argument tested here is that the impact of trust on policy preferences is conditional on a domain’s salience (measured over time for the public as a whole re defense/international and race/redistribution issues using a content analysis of NYT news stories). One ANES question from each domain was asked in every survey from 1980-2004: support for defense spending, government aid to blacks.

Results: When a domain is salient (as defense/international was in the

mid 1980s and after 9/11, and as race/redistribution was at other times), trust → policy views much more strongly than when it is not [analysis based on nonblacks only]. Moral of this and some of the other work that we’ve discussed: High levels of trust can be a resource for conservatives as well as for liberals, depending on the issue and its salience to the public at a given time.

Other Consequences of Mistrust tax revolt (Proposition 13, 1978, California) term limits (state, local officials) support for/utilization of direct democracy (Dyck APR ‘09) negative reaction to political scandals less discretion for political decision makers in general (especially regarding

the adoption of policies that require some measure of sacrifice by citizens) less job security for incumbents (maybe)

Pew Research Center, 2010

One Last Perspective

Although the decline is not as steep as with political trust, Americans also have become less trusting of other people over the past few decades. What happens when you don’t trust either government or the people? Maybe you turn to what has been called “individualistic libertarianism,” i.e., you just want to be left alone. http://peterlevine.ws/?p=6836

Luke Keele, “Social Capital and the Dynamics of Trust in Government,” American Journal of Political Science (2007).*

The argument here is that trust is not simply a function of how citizens view

political leaders (esp. whether they have the integrity and capacity to meet expectations), but also of how much the public engages in civic life and the attendant attitudes of interpersonal trust and reciprocity that may develop as a result of that activity.

Aggregate-level analysis from 1970-2000 shows that overall levels of trust

respond fairly rapidly to changing perceptions of government performance (esp. index of consumer confidence and congressional job approval; presi-dential approval appears not to matter except to the extent that he is held responsible for economic trends) – and more gradually to changes in civic engagement and interpersonal trust. Conclusion: A restoration of trust in government is unlikely without some resurgence in social capital (esp. civic engagement).

Pew Research Center’s Government Satisfaction Quiz (2010) http://pewresearch.org/satisfaction/ 1. Is federal govt having positive or negative effect on the way things are going in

the country today? 2. Is Congress doing excellent, good, fair, or poor job? 3. Overall, are agencies and depts. of the federal govt doing an excellent, good, fair,

or poor job? 4. Is Obama administration doing excellent, good, fair, or poor job? 5. How much of the time can you trust the govt in Wash. to do what is right? 6. Does federal govt need very major reform, only some reform, or not much

change at all? 7. How much effect does federal govt’s activities have on your day-to-day life? 8. How do you feel about the federal govt – basically content, frustrated, or angry? plus 3 additional questions

Linkage/Representation

“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” (Nikita Krushchev)

Dyadic Representation Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, “Constituency Influence in Congress,”

American Political Science Review (1963).* Russell J. Dalton, “Political Parties and Political Representation: Party

Supporters and Party Elites in Nine Nations,” Comparative Political Studies (1985).

John D. Griffin and Brian Newman, “Voting Power, Policy Representation,

and Disparities in Voting’s Rewards,” Journal of Politics (2013).** [see slide] Christopher Ellis, “Understanding Economic Biases in Representation:

Income, Resources, and Policy Representation in the 110th House,” Political Research Quarterly (2012).

Stephen Ansolabehere and Philip Edward Jones, “Constituents’ Responses to

Congressional Roll-Call Voting,” American Journal of Political Science (2010).*

Public Opinion and Policy Outcomes Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy,”

American Political Science Review (1983).** Mark A. Smith, “Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation within a

Market Economy: Does the Structural Power of Business Undermine Popular Sovereignty?” American Journal of Political Science (1999).*

Martin Gilens, “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness,” Public Opinion

Quarterly (2005). [see slide] Patrick Flavin, “Income Inequality and Policy Representation in the American

States,” American Politics Research (2012).*

Griffin and Newman, .Voting Power, Policy Representation, and Disparities in Voting’s Rewards,” JOP (2013).

Gilens, “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness,” POQ (2005).