The Impact of Public Opinion and Advocacy on Public Policy

• In Event: Policy Advocacy and Advocacy Coalitions Framework

Abstract

This paper addresses a longstanding controversy about democratic politics–whether democratic governments are more responsive to the public, or to the activities of interest groups, social movement organizations, and other organizations (altogether, advocacy). But it amends the usual approach to consider three additional possibilities–that public opinion and advocacy affect policy equally, that they interact, and that neither has much impact. A review synthesis of all articles estimating the impact of both public opinion and advocacy on policy published in 68 political science and sociology journals between 2000 and 2020 shows that most often, neither influences policy. How much credence should we give such findings? It is hard to say, because almost none of the articles shows any interest in generalization; we do not know if the findings reflect the democratic policy process generally. How might the findings be explained theoretically? The articles themselves are of little help; almost half test no theories; almost half test theories about the impact of public opinion or advocacy but not both; very few test competing theories. The paper then considers two ways future work might be made more credible. The first–improving the conceptualization and measurement and public opinion, advocacy, and policy–might lead to findings showing public opinion and advocacy having more impact than has been shown so far. The second–making greater efforts at generalization–might lead to findings showing public opinion and advocacy having even less impact than has been shown so far.

Author

• Paul Burstein, University of Washington