Do Governments Always Take Unpopular Decisions Knowingly? How Perceptual Inaccuracy Affects Policy Decisions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Governments’ occasional failures to respond to voters’ preferences are usually ascribed to ‘rational’ behaviours; that they are knowingly being ‘responsible’ rather than ‘responsive’, prioritising perceived policy benefits over electoral goals. Yet given the increasing evidence that decision-makers are poor at estimating public opinion, could an additional explanation for their occasional failure to respond simply be that they fail to anticipate the unpopularity of such decisions? In this study, I trace the decision-making process in three cases where UK governments took electorally costly decisions to explore whether and why decision-makers misjudged voters’ reactions. I find that key decision-makers dismissed signals that voters would punish them for these actions, often prioritising information that reinforced their existing policy preferences. The results support findings that decision-makers’ judgements are compromised by motivated reasoning and shed light on how politicians’ failure to estimate public opinion plays out in practise.