Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-xhbcn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-23T14:37:40.867Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Studying Substantive Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Lawrence R. Jacobs  and
Robert Y. Shapiro
Lawrence R. Jacobs
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Robert Y. Shapiro
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Within the last decade, the amount and quality of research on the relationship between public opinion and policy making has taken a dramatic step forward. This research contributes to the development of democratic theory and to the (re)organization of political science as a profession. Further development of opinion-policy research, however, will require addressing several critical limitations.

What Has Been Done

Statistical analyses and interpretative case studies have reported (both in the United States and Western Europe) a systematic relationship between public opinion and decision making on a range of issues—from national security to social security (for a review see Shapiro and Jacobs 1989 and Shapiro and Young 1989). These results have emerged from several distinct research designs.

The first relies on in-depth investigations of public opinion's impact on formulating specific policies. These case studies rely on closely examining public opinion as gauged through polling results and policy decisions. Many of these studies offer cross-national studies; they discuss issues central to international relations, American politics, and comparative politics (Jacobs 1992a, 1992b, and 1993; Risse-Kappen 1991; Deese 1994 for essays by Shapiro and Page, Graham, and Bennett; Jasper 1990; Eichenberg 1989; Russett 1990; Graham 1989; Kusnitz 1984; Burstein 1985; Sobel 1993; Mattes 1993). For instance, Jacobs (1993) uses interviews and archival evidence to investigate the formulation of American and British health care policy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 9 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Achen, Christopher. 1978. “Measuring Representation.” American Journal of Political Science. 22 (August):475–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldrich, John H., Sullivan, John, and Borgida, Eugene. 1989. “Foreign Affairs and Issue Voting: Do Presidential Candidates Waltz Before a Blind Audience?” American Political Science Review 83:123–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, Michael, and Coleman, William. 1989. “Strong States and Weak States: Sectoral Policy Networks in Advanced Capitalist Economics.” British Journal of Political Science 19:47–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnum, David G. 1985. “The Supreme Court and Public Opinion: Judicial Decision Making in the Post-New Deal Period.” Journal of Politics 47:652–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnum, David G. 1993. The Supreme Court and American Democracy. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1993. “Messages Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure.” American Political Science Review 87 (June):267–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1991. “Constituency Opinion and Congressional Policy Making: The Reagan Defense Buildup.” American Political Science Review 85:457–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1992. “The Pentagon Budget: Responsiveness and Inertia.” Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Brooks, Joel E. 1985. “Democratic Frustration in the Anglo-American Polities: A Quantification of Inconsistency Between Mass Public Opinion and Public Policy.” The Western Political Science Quarterly 38 (June):250–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Joel E. 1987. “The Opinion-Policy Nexus in France: Do Institutions and Ideology Make a Difference?” The Journal of Politics 49 (May):465–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burstein, Paul. 1985. Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Terry and Ferguson, Lorna. 1983. City Money: Political Processes, Fiscal Strain, and Retrenchment. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Bernard C. 1973. The Public's Impact of Foreign Policy. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Cook, Fay Lomax, and Barrett, Edith J. 1992. Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Coughlin, Richard M. 1980. Ideology, Public Opinion, and Welfare Policy: Attitudes Toward Taxes and Spending in Industrialized Societies. Berkeley: International Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, Russell J. 1988. Citizen Politics in Western Democracies. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Deese, David. 1994. The New Politics of American Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Devine, Donald J. 1970. The Attentive Public: Polyarchical Democracy. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Edwards, George III. 1989. At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Eichenberg, Richard C. 1989. Public Opinion and National Security in Western Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 1978. “Constituency Opinion and Congressional Behavior: A Reexamination of the Miller-Stokes Data.” American Journal of Political Science 22:511–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 1981. “Measuring Constituency Opinion: The 1978 U.S. Congressional Election Survey.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 6:235–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Wright, Gerald C. Jr., and McIver, John P. 1989. “Political Parties, Public Opinion, and State Policy in the United States.” American Political Science Review. 83:728–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 1993. Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Democracy in American States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Farkas, Steve, Shapiro, Robert Y., and Page, Benjamin I. 1990. “The Dynamics of Public Opinion and Policy.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Funston, Richard. 1975. “The Supreme Court and Critical Elections.” American Political Science Review 69:795–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1988. “Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare.” American Political Science Review 82:511–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1989. “The Policy Consequences of Political Intolerance: Political Repression During the Vietnam War Era.” Journal of Politics 51:13–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin. 1986. The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin, and Shefter, Martin. 1990. Politics by Other Means: The Declining Importance of Elections in America. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Graham, Thomas W. 1989. The Politics of Failure: Strategic Nuclear Arms Control, Public Opinion and Domestic Politics in the United States, 1945–1985. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter. 1986. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1987. Models of Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hartley, Thomas, and Russett, Bruce. 1992. “Public Opinion and the Common Defense: Who Governs Military Spending in the United States?” American Political Science Review 86 (December):905–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinckley, Ronald H. 1992. People, Polls, and Policymakers: American Public Opinion and National Security. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Hurley, Patricia A. 1982. “Collective Representation Reappraised.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 7:119–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Kinder, Donald. 1987. News That Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, John E., and King, David C. 1989. “Public Goods, Private Interests and Representation.” American Political Science Review 83 (December):1143–1164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence. 1993. The Health of Nations: Public Opinion and the Making of American and British Health Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence. 1992a. “Institutions and Culture: Health Policy and Public Opinion in the U.S. and Britain,” World Politics 44 (January):179–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence. 1992b. “The Recoil Effect: Public Opinion and Policy Making in the United States and Britain.” Comparative Politics 24 (January): 199–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1994. “Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: The Use of Private Polls in Kennedy's 1960 Presidential Campaign.” American Political Science Review (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1993a. “Public Opinion in President Clinton's First Year: Leadership and Responsiveness.” Presented at the conference on the “Clinton Presidency: Campaigning, Governing, and the Psychology of Leadership,” The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, New York City, November 18–19, 1993.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1993b. “The Public Presidency, Private Polls, and Policymaking: Lyndon Johnson.” Presented at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 2–5.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1992. “Public Decisions, Private Polls: John F. Kennedy's Presidency.” Presented at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 9–11.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence, and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1989. “Public Opinion and the New Social History: Some Lessons for the Study of Public Opinion and Democratic Policy-making.” Social Science History 13 (Spring): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jasper, James. 1990. Nuclear Politics: Energy and the State in the United States, Sweden, and France. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter (ed). 1978. Between Power and Plenty: The Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Kernell, Samuel. 1993. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership. Second edition. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Kusnitz, Leonard A. 1984. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: America's China Policy, 1949–1979. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theordore J. 1979. The End of Liberalism (2nd Edition). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theordore J. 1985. The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Marcus, George E. and Hanson, Russell L. 1993. Reconsidering the Democratic Public. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
McDonagh, Eileen Lorenzi. 1992a. “Electoral Bases of Policy Innovation in the Progressive Era: The Impact of Grass-Root Opinion on Roll Call Voting in the House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, 1913–1915.” Journal of Policy History 4 (2):162–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonagh, Eileen Lorenzi. 1992b. “Representative Democracy and State Building in the Progressive Era.” American Political Science Review 86 (December):938–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolis, Michael, and Mauser, Gary. 1989. Manipulating Public Opinion: Essays on Public Opinion as a Dependent Variable. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Marshall, Thomas R. 1989. Public Opinion and the Supreme Court. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Mattes, Robert. 1993. “The Voice of the People? Pollsters, Presidents, the Press, and the Politics of Public Opinion.” Photocopy of book manuscript.Google Scholar
Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. 1963. “Constituency Influence in Congress.” American Political Science Review 57 (March):45–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishler, William, and Sheehan, Reginald S. 1993. “The Supreme Court as Counter-majoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decision.” American Political Science Review 87 (March):87–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, Alan D. 1979. “Consistency Between Public Preferences and National Policy Decisions.” American Politics Quarterly 7 (January):3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neustadt, Richard. 1980. Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership from FDR to Carter. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Nie, Norman, Verba, Sidney, and Petrocik, John. 1979. The Changing American Voter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nincic, Miroslav. 1992a. Democracy and Foreign Policy: The Fallacy of Political Realism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Nincic, Miroslav. 1992b. “A Sensible Public: New Perspectives on Popular Opinion and Foreign Policy.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (December):772–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, Charles W. Jr., and Marra, Robin F. 1986. “U.S. Defense Spending and the Soviet Estimate.” American Political Science Review 80:819–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin. 1978. Choices and Elections in Presidential Elections. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1983. “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy.” American Political Science Review 77 (March):175–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, Shapiro, Robert, and Dempsey, Glenn. 1987. “What Moves Public Opinion.” American Political Science Review 81 (March):23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, Shapiro, Robert, Gronke, Paul W., and Rosenberg, Robert M. 1984. “Constituency, Party, and Representation in Congress.” Public Opinion Quarterly 48:741–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Mark. 1990. Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pitkin, Hanna. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin Samuel, L. 1991. The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powlick, Philip J. 1991. “The Attitudinal Bases of Responsiveness to Public Opinion among American Foreign Policy Officials.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35:611–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rielly, John E., ed. 1987. American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1987. Chicago: The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.Google Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1991. “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies. World Politics 43:479–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and Hansen, John Mark. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, Democracy in America. New York: McMillan.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce. 1990. Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartori, Giovanni. 1987. The Theory of Democracy Revisited. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1950. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Robert Y., and Jacobs, Lawrence R. 1989. “The Relationship Between Public Opinion and Public Policy: A Review.” In Political Behavior Annual. Vol. 2, ed. Long, Samuel. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Robert Y., and Young, John T. 1989. “Public Opinion and the Welfare State: the United States in Comparative Perspective.” Political Science Quarterly 104 (Spring):59–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silver, Charles, and Shapiro, Robert. 1984. “Public Opinion and the Federal Judiciary: Crime, Punishment, and Demographic Constraints.” Population Research and Policy Review 3:255–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skowronek, Stephen. 1982. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, Richard, ed. 1993. Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy. Boston: Roman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Stimson, James A. 1991. Public Opinion in America: Moods, Swings, and Cycles. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Stimson, James, MacKuen, Michael, and Erikson, Robert. 1993. “Dynamic Representation.” University of Minnesota. Photocopy.Google Scholar
Stone, Walter J. 1982. “Electoral Change and Policy Representation in Congress: Domestic Welfare Issues from 1956–1972.” British Journal of Political Science 12:95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tulis, Jeffrey. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society. 3 vols. New York: Bedminster Press.Google Scholar
Weissberg, Robert. 1976. Public Opinion and Popular Government. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.Google Scholar
Weissberg, Robert. 1978. “Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress.” American Political Science Review 72:535–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, Darrell M. 1987. Congress and Economic Policy making. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilensky, Harold L. 1975. The Welfare State and Equality. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Woodrow. 1952. Leaders of Men, ed. Motter, T. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Woodrow. 1925. Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.Google Scholar
Wilson, Woodrow. 1908. Constitutional Government in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittkopf, Eugene R. 1990. Faces of Internationalism: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wlezien, Christopher. 1993. “From Outputs to Inputs: The Feedback of Budgetary Policy on Public Preferences for Spending.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago. April 9–11.Google Scholar
Wright, Gerald C., Erikson, Robert S., and McIver, John P. 1987. “Public Opinion and Policy Liberalism in the American States.” American Journal of Political Science 31:980–1001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar