Perceived Motives in the Political Arena

Abstract

People care about more than the substance of policy outcomes. They also care about how political decisions are made. In this article, I report findings from national surveys and two survey experiments that shed light on the factors that affect how people attribute motives to politicians. I find that party cues, policy preferences, and other factors affect which motives people see as the most important explanations for a representative’s behavior. I also find suggestive evidence that people are not strictly averse to representatives who are motivated by political self-interest. Instead, they appear to be more concerned with the extent to which a representative is motivated by his or her genuinely held preferences and a desire to serve the public. The findings constitute an important step toward understanding how people attribute motives in the political arena and the potential consequences of these judgments about what drives politicians’ behavior.Critics accuse Joe Biden of running for President for political reasons. Veteran presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) is once again facing criticism that his bid for the nation’s highest office is based solely on political reasons. “This campaign is nothing more than a naked power-grab by a man who wants only to pursue his own leadership agendas by heading the nation’s executive branch . . ..” Biden, who encountered similar accusations during his first presidential run in 1988, once again declined to respond to the allegations, only saying that he wished to make America a stronger nation and a better place to live.