Belief Congruence of Governmental and Interest Group Elites With Their Constituencies

Abstract

Most studies of belief congruence between elites and their constituencies have dealt with a single type of political institution, such as legislatures, political parties, or bureaucracies. This article compares the extent of congruence between governmental and interest group elites with their constituencies. After discussing elites' incentives to appeal both to their very broad "claimed" constituency and to a much narrower "activist" constituency, we suggest a number of reasons for hypothesizing that governmental elites will do a better job than interest group leaders of mirroring the beliefs of their broader "Claimed" Constituency. Survey data from a number of governmental and interest group elites involved in a longstanding environmental dispute at Lake Tahoe generally support this contention.