Understanding and Reducing Biases in Elite Beliefs About the Electorate

Abstract

To be responsive, politicians have to rely on beliefs about public will. Previous research suggests that perceptions of public opinion are often distorted. However, it remains unclear (1) why reelection-seeking officials misperceive constituent preferences, and (2) how to mitigate these distorted beliefs. I argue that misperceptions result in part from unequal exposure to different subconstituencies, and a tendency of legislators to project their own preferences on voters. A six-wave panel of Swedish MPs combined with mass surveys provides support for these arguments. Elite beliefs disproportionately reflect the preferences of more privileged subconstituencies and the personal positions of legislators. Additionally, an experiment with Swiss representatives leveraging real political events reveals how misperceptions can be reduced by encouraging a more balanced exposure to voters. The study concludes that economic and political inequalities are rooted in elite beliefs about public preferences and reveals ways to bolster the links between voters and their representatives.

Selection Neglect and Political Beliefs

“…Third, those who have previously held office have less accurate beliefs about the opinions of their constituents, consistent with interactions with a biased electorate drive perceptions. Pereria (2021) similarly finds that Swedish MPs are more likely to misperceive majority opinion within their party when high status voters have different views than the majority. In a separate experiment, Pereria (2021) also finds that encouraging Swiss politicians to think about their constituency as a whole reduces errors in predicting constituent opinion about referenda.…”

Does Direct Democracy Enhance Politicians’ Perceptions of Constituents’ Opinions? Evidence from Switzerland

“…We know of one study that investigates MPs’ perceptions of public opinion in the context of direct democracy using an actual vote (Pereira, 2021). However, the focus of our paper – to investigate the informational function of direct democracy instruments – requires us to compare respondents’ perceptions on issues that have already been subjected to a vote in recent years to those that have not.…”

Inaccurate Politicians: Elected Representatives’ Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries

“…A small number of empirical studies examines the accuracy of politicians' perceptions of citizens' preferences. Spanning more than 50 years of research, our systematic review finds just thirteen published empirical studies (Miller and Stokes 1963;Sigel and Friesema 1965;Hedlund and Friesema 1972;Erikson, Luttbeg, and Holloway 1975;Clausen, Holmberg, and deHaven-Smith 1983;Converse and Pierce 1986;Esaiasson and Holmberg 1996;Holmberg 1999;Norris and Lovenduski 2004;Belchior 2014;Broockman and Skovron 2018;Kalla and Porter 2020;Pereira 2021).…”