Policy Mood Research Articles

Assessing a New Measure of State Policy Mood: Response to Lagodny, Jones, Koch, and Enns

AbstractThis article presents a short summary of the conclusions we report in a longer manuscript (available in our Supplementary Material) subjecting Lagodny et al.’s new measure of state policy mood to the same set of face validity and construct validity tests we applied earlier to Enns and Koch’s measure. We encourage readers to read this longer manuscript, which contains not only the conclusions herein, but also the evidence justifying these conclusions, before accepting or rejecting any claims we make. Our results show that the characteristics of Enns and Koch’s measure that led us to be doubtful that it is valid are also present in Lagodny et al.’s new measure – leaving us just as doubtful that Lagodny et al.’s measure is valid. Moreover, the low correlation between Lagodny et al.’s measure and Enns and Koch’s measure, combined with evidence from replications of seven published studies that the two measures frequently yield quite different inferences about the impact of policy mood on public policy, indicate that Lagodny et al.’s claim that both their measure and Enns and Koch’s measure are valid is wrong; either neither measure is valid, or one is valid and the other is not. Moreover, extending the replications to include not only Lagodny et al.’s and Enns and Koch’s measures, but also Berry et al.’s measure and Caughey and Warshaw’s measure of mass economic liberalism, shows that each of the four measures yields a substantive conclusion about the effect of policy mood that is dramatically different than each of the other three measures. This suggests that the goal of developing a measure of state policy mood that would be widely accepted as valid remains elusive.

Policy mood and thermostatic representation in developing democracies: taking the temperature in Uruguay

ABSTRACT The dynamics of aggregate public opinion – particularly James Stimson’s measure of policy mood – have long been used to explain electoral outcomes and government responsiveness in the United States. However, we still know little about policy mood outside the US and a few Western European countries. Understanding the relationship between policy and preferences outside the pool of advanced democracies is crucial as voters outside that context are often depicted as outcome oriented; that is, they are depicted as voting based on valence issues, where there is shared agreement on the preferred outcome, instead of on a set of coherent policy preferences. We argue that this depiction of voters is attributable to the absence of data in these countries and not to the absence of coherent policy preferences. We test our argument by analyzing nearly three decades of Uruguayan public opinion data including 78 different questions administered 295 times. Our analysis shows that policy preferences across related issues in Uruguay largely move in tandem, suggesting that a coherent policy mood indeed exists. Further, we provide evidence that this policy mood is distinct from symbolic political ideology and that it responds thermostatically to changes in government. This thermostatic responsiveness suggests that Uruguayans do not merely focus on whether the economy is good or bad but, rather, update their policy preferences in response to the direction of government policy. Together, these results offer a much more nuanced depiction of public opinion outside advanced industrial democracies than previous research suggests, with important implications for democratic accountability in Latin America and other developing economies.

ОЛНОО ӨРГӨГДСӨН МОНГОЛ УЛСЫН ЭДИЙН ЗАСГИЙН ТУСГААР ТОГТНОЛЫН АСУУДАЛД

When in the 29th of December of 1911 the Mongols established own state for strengthening it and liberation own territory from the Manchu-Chinese troops unite the rest of Mongolia under the Mongol rule need a huge amount of financial sources. So make the fund rising in the Mongolian ground was impossible. For that purpose the Mongols seek the financial aid from Russia and heavily talk how the Mongols should have own financial sources and how payback the Russian loan and how the Mongols should develop their financial ability. All those internal policy moods in the Mongolian society described in this article using the historical sources of that time.

Evaluating Policy Mood Measures in the American States

AbstractThe scholarly exchange over approaches to measuring public preferences in the American states dates back several years. This introduction to the debate attempts to provide broad perspective on how scholars have conceptualized and measured policy mood among state mass publics in the past and the implications of those choices for theoretical and empirical questions in state politics. We frame the discussion around two questions: (1) what is the concept to be measured? and (2) how does the concept fit with the research question? We conclude with some insight on the future of the debate and its implications for state politics research.

A Validation and Extension of State-Level Public Policy Mood: 1956–2020

AbstractTo fully understand state policy outcomes or elections in the US, we need valid over-time measures of state-level public opinion. We contribute to the research on measuring state public opinion in two ways. First, we respond to Berry, Fording, Hanson, and Crofoot’s (BFHC) critique of Enns and Koch’s measure of state policy mood. We show that when BFHC’s analysis is performed using the same states and examining annual change, it validates the Enns and Koch measure and raises questions about the Berry, Ringquist, Fording, and Hanson measure. Second, we generate a new measure of state policy mood building on Enns and Koch’s approach. The new measure has even better properties than the previous measure and relates to state presidential vote and state policy liberalism in similar ways to Caughey and Warshaw’s measure of state economic liberalism. We conclude with recommendations for using the various direct measures of state public opinion.

The Validity of the Enns and Koch, and Berry et al. Measures of State Policy Mood: Continuing the Debate

AbstractEnns and Koch question the validity of the Berry, Ringquist, Fording, and Hanson measure of state policy mood and defend the validity of the Enns and Koch measure on two grounds. First, they claim policy mood has become more conservative in the South over time; we present empirical evidence to the contrary: policy mood became more liberal in the South between 1980 and 2010. Second, Enns and Koch argue that an indicator’s lack of face validity in cross-sectional comparisons is irrelevant when judging the measure’s suitability in the most common form of pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis. We show their argument is logically flawed, except under highly improbable circumstances. We also demonstrate, by replicating several published studies, that statistical results about the effect of state policy mood can vary dramatically depending on which of the two mood measures is used, making clear that a researcher’s measurement choice can be highly consequential.

Whose Vote Counts for Crime Policy?

AbstractPolicy responsiveness to public opinion is necessary for democratic governance, yet research on crime policy responsiveness has focused on the public at large, overlooking variation in policy support among demographic bodies and its heterogeneous effects on policy implementation. Creating new state-level measures of group opinion on punitive policy mood using 257,356 responses to 79 national surveys administered between 1970 and 2015, this study examines the effect of race, age, and gender-specific opinion on the incarceration rate. Consistent with prior studies, results reveal parallel trends in punitive policy support, with punitiveness increasing in tandem across demographic subgroups. Statistical findings from error correction models, however, reveal that not all groups had equal influence. Only the opinions of the most punitive groups—whites, men, and 30–44-year-olds—influenced the incarceration rate. Further, the largest divide in policy responsiveness to group opinion was between blacks and whites. In fact, estimates suggest that if whites’ punitive policy support had not risen, the current incarceration rate would be roughly the same as if violent crime had not risen during the 45 years of mass incarceration. The implications of these results are discussed for research on policy responsiveness, partisan politics, and for the “democracy at work” hypothesis of mass incarceration.

Policy specific moods disconnect income inequality and government redistribution

ABSTRACT The competing arguments of “unequal democracy” and “dynamic democracy” highlight the puzzle of why there has been unabated economic inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. This study addresses the question by investigating the causal directions and dynamic relations of inequality, redistributive policy specific moods (social welfare and tax), and government redistribution. Unlike current approaches of emphasizing mass preferences or government responsiveness across income groups, this work puts forward that the sustained increase in inequality is due to a lack of evidence of the “dialogue” between inequality and redistribution. It is the policy specific moods that lead to this disconnection. The Granger causality test based on time series data in the U.S. indicates that inequality causes tax but not social welfare policy moods, whereas redistribution simply responds to the latter. Also, the ECM results show that a long-run relationship presents between inequality and tax policy moods as well as between social welfare policy moods and redistribution. This study suggests that the disconnection is a consequence of the mismatch between the redistributive policy demand and supply. Distinguishing between policy preferences for welfare benefits and taxes improves our ability to explain the self-reinforcing inequality.

The policy mood in Spain: the thermostat in a warm climate, 1978–2017

AbstractRepresentative democracies are supposed to be uniquely virtuous in that they ensure that public preferences drive public policy. Dynamic representation is the outcome of a recurring interaction between electorate and parties that can be observed at the macro level. Preferences can shape government policy via two possible mechanisms. ‘Policy accomodation’ suggests that governments respond directly to the electorate’s preferences. ‘Electoral turnover’, on the other hand, assumes that preferences shape policy indirectly. Parties pursue their ideological goals, and public preferences respond ‘thermostatically’ by moving in the opposite direction to policy. This causes voters to switch votes and eventually leads to a turnover of power from one ‘side’ to ‘the other’. In this paper, we estimate preferences for government activity (‘the policy mood’) in Spain between 1978 and 2017. We show that mood responds ‘thermostatically’ to policy. Variations in mood are associated with support for parties. Policy is driven by party control but is not thermostatically responsive to mood. It appears that in Spain – like Britain – dynamic representation can only be achieved by electoral turnover. We consider the implications of this for our understanding of how representation works.

Clinical and personality profile of depressed suicide attempters: A preliminary study at the open-door policy Mood Disorder Unit of San Raffaele Hospital

Suicidal behavior is a complex phenomenon with high rates among psychiatric inpatients. Mood disorders and personality dysfunctions represent relevant risk factors for suicides attempts and suicidal ideation. Our study aims to investigate the role of the co-occurrence of clinical variables (duration of depressive state, previous suicide attempts), socio-demographic variables (gender, employment and civil status) and narcissistic personality features in the suicide risk of admitted psychiatric patients affected by a mood disorder. The sample was composed of 93 patients consecutively admitted in an open ward psychiatric Unit. Forty-eight participants had a positive history of previous suicide attempts: the suicide attempters (SA) were mostly female, unemployed and married. The SA group were observed to have suffered from a depressive episode with a longer duration; moreover in the SA group, the presence of active suicidal ideation was significantly related to a higher number of previous suicide attempts. In the whole sample, suicidal ideation was significantly related to narcissistic vulnerability personality features. Using a multidimensional approach, the present study allows a preliminary profiling of patients at risk for suicidal behavior during hospitalization.

A Bounds Approach to Inference Using the Long Run Multiplier

Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) (PSS) proposed a bounds procedure for testing for the existence of long run cointegrating relationships between a unit root dependent variable ($y_{t}$) and a set of weakly exogenous regressors$\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$when the analyst does not know whether the independent variables are stationary, unit root, or mutually cointegrated processes. This procedure recognizes the analyst’s uncertainty over the nature of the regressors but not the dependent variable. When the analyst is uncertain whether$y_{t}$is a stationary or unit root process, the test statistics proposed by PSS are uninformative for inference on the existence of a long run relationship (LRR) between$y_{t}$and$\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$. We propose the long run multiplier (LRM) test statistic as a means of testing for LRRs without knowing whether the series are stationary or unit roots. Using stochastic simulations, we demonstrate the behavior of the test statistic given uncertainty about the univariate dynamics of both$y_{t}$and$\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$, illustrate the bounds of the test statistic, and generate small sample and approximate asymptotic critical values for the upper and lower bounds for a range of sample sizes and model specifications. We demonstrate the utility of the bounds framework for testing for LRRs in models of public policy mood and presidential success.

Parallel lines? Policy mood in a plurinational democracy

We usually think of democratic accountability in national terms – if the people do not approve of a government, they can replace it. However, in a plurinational democracy it is not obvious that such a single national public exists. We consider this problem in the case of Scotland, providing the first application of the macro-polity approach to a plurinational democracy. We provide a systematic study of how public opinion in Scotland changes over time compared to that in the rest of Great Britain, using recently developed Bayesian IRT scaling techniques, and ask whether Scottish and British public opinion move in parallel. To the extent that there is a separate Scottish public opinion with a separate party system, this forces us to rethink the way that democracy and accountability work in plurinational political systems.

Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Policy: Theory and Research

This article reviews evidence for the effects of public opinion on court decision-making, capital punishment policy and use, correctional expenditures, and incarceration rates. It also assesses evidence about the factors explaining changes over time in public support for punitive crime policies. Most of this evidence originates from outside of our discipline. I identify two reasons that criminologists have not made more progress toward understanding the opinion-policy relationship. One is an unfamiliarity with important theoretical and empirical developments in political science pertaining to public policy mood, parallel opinion change, majoritarian congruence, and dynamic representation. Another is our overreliance on cross-sectional studies and preoccupation with comparing support levels elicited with different questions (global versus specific) and under different conditions (uninformed versus informed). I show how the resultant findings have contributed to misunderstandings about the nature of public opinion and created a false summit in our analysis of the opinion-policy relationship.

Policy accommodation versus electoral turnover: policy representation in Britain, 1945–2015

AbstractDoes public policy in the United Kingdom respond to changes in public preferences? If so, is this the result of the government changing its policy to reflect preferences (“policy accommodation”) or the result of governments that pursue unpopular policies being replaced at elections by governments more in line with the public (“electoral turnover”)? We explore these questions by estimating annual aggregate public preferences (“the policy mood”) using responses to 287 questions administered 2,087 times and annual policy using budgetary data (“nonmilitary government expenditure”) for the whole of the postwar period. We find that mood moves in the opposite direction to policy and variations in mood are associated with variations in annual vote intentions. Policy is responsive to party control but not directly responsive to mood. Shifts in mood eventually lead to a change in government and thus policy, but this process may be very slow if the public has doubts about the competence of the opposition.

Citizens’ policy mood, policies and election outcomes in Italy

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the relationship between changes in Italians’ policy preferences and parties’ and governments’ responsiveness. It analyses whether there is a congruence between citizens’ policy preferences, on one side, and parties’ and governments’ ideological positions on the other. The study represents the first attempt to estimate the Italian ‘policy mood’ adopting a methodology already used for other political systems. We infer public preferences from more than 200 survey questions, administered more than 550 times between 1981 and 2015, which ask respondents to ‘take a side’ on several controversial domestic policy issues. Empirical results sustain the idea that public opinion acts as a thermostat to balance governments’ policy goals; and, at the same time, they provide somewhat stronger evidence for the argument that governments adapt their preferences to changes in public opinion. Finally, it is shown that there is a relationship between citizens’ preferences and their voting choices.

State Policy Mood: The Importance of Over-time Dynamics

Recently, we introduced and validated annual state-level estimates of the public's policy mood and party identification from 1956 to 2010 and self-identified political ideology from 1976 to 2010. In this issue, Berry, Ringquist, Fording, and Hanson (BRFH) compare our measure of policy mood with a measure they created, and they conclude that their measure is “the best available indicator of state policy mood for researchers doing pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis.” In this article, we show that BRFH's skepticism of our measure and confidence in their measure result from a failure to fully consider over-time dynamics. When we consider over-time variation, the Enns and Koch measure of policy mood continues to perform well. By contrast, some concerning patterns emerge with the BRFH measure. In addition to further validating the Enns and Koch measure, this article speaks to similarities in opinion change across states and offers initial evidence of an over-time relationship between state policy mood and state spending priorities.

Assessing the Validity of Enns and Koch's Measure of State Policy Mood

Enns and Koch (hereafter E&K) use multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) along with survey aggregation to measure state policy mood. As E&K rely on direct information about public opinion, it would be preferable to Berry et al.‘s widely used indirect measure relying on data about the issue positions and vote shares of members of Congress, if E&K's measure were valid. Assessing the validity of E&K's measure takes on special importance because the measure proves to be nearly uncorrelated with Berry et al.‘s measure, implying that at least one is invalid. Because the “true” policy mood of states is unknown, it is impossible to definitively assess the validity of E&K's measure. Instead, we raise some concerns about E&K's measurement methodology and present evidence pertaining to the indicator's face validity, convergent validity, and construct validity. Our analyses leave us doubtful that the E&K measure is valid because its characterization of state moods departs significantly from conventional wisdom and current scholarship.

A re-examination of the effects of the economy, government spending, and incumbent ideology on national policy mood

Previous explanations of the causes of shifts in policy mood have been primarily economic. When the economy expands aggregate policy preferences move left, but when the economy contracts aggregate policy preferences move right. In this paper, we seek to improve our understanding of the causes of national policy mood shift in two ways. First, we focus on government spending and its impact on policy mood. Previously scholars used it as a control variable in their models and pretty much assumed that intrusive spending will move policy mood to the right, while lack of it will move policy mood to the left. We investigate if different types of the spending have different effects on the policy mood of a nation. Second, we seek a better understanding of the impact of national economic conditions on policy mood by looking at more countries, using various data and more sophisticated methodology. A panel data analysis of two different measures of the policy mood, one based on party manifestos (24 countries and 33 years) and the other based on voter surveys (17 countries and 29 years), reveals that: (i) there is ample evidence that economic conditions have a direct impact on the policy mood of citizens; (ii) the national policy mood is generally negatively related to the current government ideology; (iii) an expanding economy pushes policy mood to the left when the incumbent’s ideology is moderate to rightist; (iv) failure to control inflation causes aggregate policy preferences to shift to the right only under a moderate to left-leaning government; (v) failure to control unemployment causes national policy preferences to shift to the right only under a moderate to right-leaning government; (vi) increasing social spending pushes policy mood further to the left only under a moderate to left-leaning government; and (vii) increasing military spending pushes policy mood to the left only under a moderate to left-leaning government.

Emotion-driven negative policy bubbles

Existing explanations of systematic undersupply of policy (e.g., institutional frictions, policy drift, and loss aversion) highlight the role of institutional and cognitive factors in the policy process while paying little attention to the role of emotions and emotional sentiments (e.g., policy mood). To bridge this gap, this article conceptualizes the role of negative emotions (e.g., fear, anger, hatred, disgust) and emotional sentiments in driving systematic policy underreaction (or what I have termed a negative policy bubble). Regarding the birth of emotion-driven negative policy bubbles, the behavioral understanding advanced here points to (1) an endogenous process that affects opinion formation, attention, learning, behavior, and attitudes; (2) an exogenous shock that “turns on” an endogenous process; (3) emotional manipulation by emotional entrepreneurs, or (4) a process by which the psychological context within which the policy process takes place conditions policy dynamics. Self-reinforcing processes interact with the contagion of emotions, imitation, and herd behavior to reinforce the lack of confidence in the policy, thereby creating a lock-in effect of systematic undersupply of policy. This process may be interrupted following modest endogenous or exogenous perturbations; a decrease in the intensity and duration of negative emotions and/or an increase in their speed of decline by emotional entrepreneurs, as well as following the reduction in negativity bias when the information environment becomes predominantly negative. The paper also provides guidance on productive directions for future research.

Economic Inequality and U.S. Public Policy Mood Across Space and Time

While classic theories suggest that growing inequality will generate mass support for redistribution, recent research suggests the opposite: increases in inequality in the United States are associated with decreases in support for redistribution among both low and high income citizens. We reconsider this conclusion. First, we examine the methods of this research, and find that the claims made are not robust to important corrections in model specification. We then utilize a distinct methodological approach, leveraging spatial variation in local inequality, and examine average differences in preferences across geographic context. Here we find a small, but positive relationship of inequality to support for redistribution. In both our reexamination of previous work and our extensions, we find little support for the claim that inequality reduces the demand for redistribution.