Are the decisions of American policy makers influenced by the attitudes of the general public or by the views of distinct sub-groups of voters? This paper seeks to identify disproportionate influence of economic and political subgroups on government policies of particular interest to them. Using a unique data set of private polls from the White House of Ronald Reagan, we find variations in presidential issue positions across policy domains, and note different types of public attitudes that reflect the views of high income earners, political independents, Baptists and born again protestants, and conservative Republicans. These findings have implications for both understanding the strategic calculations in how public opinion is collected and used, as well as identifying economic and political pathways for biasing government policy from serving the overall interests of the country.
James N. Druckman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University Lawrence R. Jacobs, Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Click on
the working paper title at the top of this
page to download a free pdf of the paper.*
If You Need to Order a Hard Copy: Hard copies
of IPR working papers cost $5.00 each (international orders are $10 each). We only accept checks drawn on U.S. bank and payable in U.S. funds. Checks or money orders should be made
payable to Northwestern University and sent to the following address:
Publications Department - WP Orders
Institute for Policy Research
2040 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-4100.
For information, call 847-491-8712 or email ipr@northwestern.edu.
Please note that we do not accept credit cards.
*Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 (or higher) is needed to read the Acrobat pdf.
If you need to install Acrobat Reader, click the button below. Once the file
has downloaded onto your desktop, run it to install the reader on your hard
drive.
