From Preference to Policy: Wealth, Institutions of Government, and the Search for Democracy
Siegel, Nolan
:
2022-08-25
Abstract
What is the nature of substantive representation within American institutions of government, and to what extent do constituents’ preferences turn into adopted policy? To answer these questions, I analyze data on federal policies proposed between 1964 and 2006 and constituents’ support for them by running a series of linear probability models to estimate the chance of policy adoption as a function of constituent support. I find the president is more responsive to constituents than Congress, and high-income constituents’ preferences – but not those of median- and low-income constituents – are significantly correlated with policies adopted by both Congress and the president.