Abstract
AbstractResearch on the responsiveness of policy to public opinion has infrequently confronted the possibility that re-election seeking politicians’ policy choices may reflect their expectations about future public opinion. This article reports observational and experimental findings from a survey of senior Canadian policy-makers. Results from vignette-based experiments that manipulate the characteristics of current and estimates of future opinion show that policy-makers are responsive to the estimated direction of future opinion, but this relationship is conditional on high estimated future salience. Survey results shed additional light on the role that estimates of future opinion play in policy-making. Combined, these experimental and observational results suggest existing empirical work on policy responsiveness is incomplete.
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