How Elites Misread Public Opinion

… As the political scientists Joshua Kertzer and Jonathan Renshon detail in a new paper in the Annual Review of Political Science, the rise of populist movements has coincided with a rise in the use of “elite experiments” — or randomized studies using elite subjects — in academia as a way to study the decision-making processes of political leaders.

Ultimately, Kertzer and Renshon told me in our conversation, the findings of these studies challenge some of our basic assumptions about how democracies should function: For one, elites, even when they try to act on public opinion, often have no idea what the public actually wants. At the same time, these studies suggest that studying the defects in elite decision-making may be the first step to correcting them — since at least in some cases, elites are still responsive to public opinion. CONTINUED

Ian Ward, Politico Magazine


The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.