Explaining Explanations: How Legislators Explain their Policy Positions and How Citizens React

Abstract

Legislators claim that how they explain their votes matters as much as or more than the roll calls themselves. However, few studies have systematically examined legislators' explanations and citizen attitudes in response to these explanations. We theorize that legislators strategically tailor explanations to constituents in order to compensate for policy choices that are incongruent with constituent preferences, and to reinforce policy choices that are congruent. We conduct a within-subjects field experiment using U.S. senators as subjects to test this hypothesis. We then conduct a between-subjects survey experiment of ordinary people to see how they react to the explanatory strategies used by senators in the field experiment. We find that most senators tailor their explanations to their audiences, and that these tailored explanations are effective at currying support-especially among people who disagree with the legislators' roll-call positions.

Centrist by Comparison: Extremism and the Expansion of the Political Spectrum

“…Finally, while we intentionally used policy proposals without any sort of justifications (Grose et al 2015;Peterson and Simonovits, nd), we think that public opinion scholars should make efforts to understand better the persuasive appeal of extremist policy proposals. An important step in this direction is to allow survey respondents to express policy preferences on a wider range than it is currently done (see Broockman 2016).…”

Responsiveness Beyond Policy Satisfaction: Does It Matter to Citizens?

“…Research on general representational quality has mainly focused on the consequences of issue agreement and of formal institutional arrangements (e.g., Thomassen, 2014). Moreover, most studies of representational quality deal with generalized attitudes and processes and not with acceptance of specific policy decisions (see, for example, Reher, 2015).Closest to the question we ask is a recent study from Grose, Malhotra, and Van Houweling (2015). The point of departure for the study is Fenno's call for research on politicians' explanations for their actions (Fenno, 1978).…”

“…Similarly, Jane Mansbridge's (2003) "anticipatory representation" allows politicians to educate voters in a continuous communication process (see also Disch, 2011). In the empirically oriented literature, Fenno (1978) pinpoints the explanation of Washington activities as a central part of U.S. representatives' home style, and he goes on to argue that "explanation involves legitimation, whereby the acts of representatives are accepted as authoritative by those they represent" (p. 169; cited in Grose et al, 2015).Furthermore, for politicians to knowingly adopt citizens' policy preferences (Soroka & Wlezien, 2010), and to provide good explanations if they do not (Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000), they must have a clear understanding of public sentiment. This means that "listening"-to learn about citizens' wishes and views-is an additional type of responsiveness action.…”

“…Closest to the question we ask is a recent study from Grose, Malhotra, and Van Houweling (2015). The point of departure for the study is Fenno's call for research on politicians' explanations for their actions (Fenno, 1978).…”

Exploring Responsiveness in the U.S. House of Representatives

“…output (Peress 2013). Indeed, studies have evaluated the degree to which legislators pay attention to subconstituencies (Bishin 2009) as well as how and when legislators engage with their constituents in a strategic manner (Grimmer 2013a(Grimmer , 2013bGrose, Malhotra and Van Houweling 2015).…”