Popular Ideology and Public Policy in Europe: Trends and Popular Ideology as a Determinant of Public Policies?

Abstract

Does popular ideology affect public policies enacted in a country? The baseline argument links popular ideology input to policy output. Either a population more often elects a party with its favored ideology into office, which then implements policies in line with popular ideology. Alternatively, all parties pursue policies more in line with popular ideology. Under the first view, popular ideology should affect government composition, which then matters for policy. Under the second view, policies should track popular ideology, but there should not be an effect of government ideology. If governments were perfect agents, a shift in popular ideology would translate in policy. This is not the case. This leaves two explanations: either that all governments purse the same policies in response to the same problems, or that governments do not actually care about their principals' ideological demands. Comparing, which policies track popular ideology and which are independent of it, indicates that governments follow popular ideology in policies, where they have no bureaucratic self-interest in certain policy developments, but otherwise pursue their own agenda.