Pathologies of Studying Public Opinion, Political Communication, and Democratic Responsiveness

Abstract

Research on democratic representation and public opinion formation has largely ignored one another. Once one considers the reality of the political communication environment, a fundamental tension between these two literatures emerges. In this essay, I review work on each, highlighting problems with both how “quality opinion” is often defined and how representation is typically studied. I then offer a way forward.

Keywords:

• opinion formation
• responsiveness

Acknowledgments

I thank Lisa Disch, Shanto Iyengar, and Josh Robison for comments and insights.

Notes

1. Of course, an alternative is the trustee model of representation where direct responsiveness is not the key; however, empirically this has not been the underling of the conceptualization of representation.

2. There are some exceptions comparing responsiveness with specific interests (Jacobs & Page, 2005) but writ large, as the quote from Bartels aptly states, “the primary problem of democracy is to assure that a government will respond appropriately to those preferences.”

3. For example, Soroka and Wlezien (2010, p. 14) put it succinctly: “The representation function of democratic governance—the production of policy consistent with our preferences—comes with a crucial stipulation: we need to know what we want representatives to do.” They go on to discuss elitist views of democracy, low information, low motivation, and so forth. They also do then explore subgroup responsiveness. However, for the main of their analyses, they follow others, stating “suffice it to say that we—along with many others, most notably Bentham (1989; see Cutler 1999), Page and Shapiro (1983), and Converse (1990)—are some of Lippmann’s (1925, p. 39) ‘mystical democrats’ [i.e., compounding of individual ignorances in masses of people can produce a continuous directing force in public affairs] … [and] examining the degree, extent, and nature of this public responsiveness is a central goal.”

4. I focus here on media and elites.

5. Disch (2011, p. 110) states: “Individuals form coherent and relatively stable preferences not in spite of but by means of messages that political elites deploy in pursuit of un-avowed competitive goals. This sets up what I term the ‘dilemma of democratic competence’: citizens’ capacity for form preferences depends on the self-interested communications of elites.”

6. As an aside, I suspect much of the presumption behind the idea of fixed preferences, and its adequacy for normative theory, stemmed from what was the dominant model of public opinion and voting for much of the second half of the 20th century—that is, Campbell et al.’s funnel of causality that focuses on relevance (as opposed to exogenous), personal (as opposed to external), and political (as opposed to non-political) factors. Campbell et al. (1960) point out that considerations become relevant, personal and political, in part via mass and interpersonal communication, but they put the questions of how those communicative processes work aside, choosing to focus on the most proximate of variables (cf. Berelson et al., 1954). Indeed, while the direct effects of mass communications were firmly established without doubt by Iyengar and Kinder’s (1987) book, it was not until 1996 that Mutz et al. set the course for a research program on political persuasion. Mutz et al. (1996, pp. 1–2) write: “Politics, at its core, is about persuasion … [it] is ubiquitous in the political process … [yet the] cross-sectional general population survey has been far and away the principal vehicle for the study of public opinion and politics [leading to] a focus on the statics, not the dynamics, of political preferences.” Consequently, they view their book as a launching pad for the “the field of study” (despite some studies over time) of political persuasion (p. 1).

7. Another possible basis for assessing opinion quality is whether opinions meet the formal requisites of economic rationality such as invariance (no change in opinions due to innocuous changes in wording) and dominance (no change in opinions in distinct states of the world). A generation of work in behavioral decision making has made clear that this standard is neither realistic nor met in the political domain (see Bartels, 2003, for a review and application to political science; however, also see Druckman, 2004). I thus do not cover this here.

8. Aside from whether people are sufficiently informed is whether they are actually misinformed—that is, they confidently hold false information about political issues. For example, Kuklinski et al. (2000) demonstrate in the realm of opinions on welfare, misinformation appears to be quite common and substantially influences preferences on the topic. Perhaps more worryingly, it appears to be very difficult to change misperceptions (Ecker et al. 2011; Kuklinski et al., 2000; Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). However, even if misinformation is corrected, this may not lead to changes in attitudes as it is the interpretation of one’s beliefs that mediates between information (correct or otherwise) and opinions (Gaines et al., 2007).

9. Also, as Gibson and Calderia (2009) make clear, coding open-ended questions is far from straightforward.

10. Taber and Lodge (2006) refer to motivated reasoning as motivated skepticism, while Lavine et al. (2012) call it “partisan perceptional screen.” While there are subtle differences, particularly with mechanisms, I treat all as synonymous here. Also, note there is a deeper psychological history behind motivated reasoning going back to Festinger (1957) and more recently Lord et al. (1979) and Kunda (1990).

11. Indeed, Lodge and Taber (2008, pp. 35–36) explain that motivated reasoning entails “systematic biasing of judgments in favor of one’s immediately accessible beliefs and feelings. … [It is] built into the basic architecture of information processing mechanisms of the brain.”

12. It is important to note that there are conditions that stunt motivated reasoning, including weaker prior opinions (Taber & Lodge, 2006), ambivalence (Lavine et al., 2012), and accuracy motivation (Bolsen et al., 2014). The question is when and among whom these conditions are applicable (see Druckman et al., 2010).

13. An interesting question is how much value conflict stems from institutional variation—such that in multi-party systems, voters have an easier time finding parties that fit their values and thereby avoid internal conflicts of this sort.

14. Moreover, even when from the news media, frames tend to reflect the efforts of elites to frame events strategically, suggesting that exposure to news may result in elite manipulation of mass opinion (see Iyengar & Kinder, 1987).

15. A cue is a piece of information that allows individuals to make inferences without drawing on more detailed knowledge (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Rucker & Petty, 2006). Beyond that, defining what “cue” means becomes tricky as they come in a variety of forms, and its usage (as with frames) varies across disciplines (see Druckman & Nelson, 2003, for a discussion). In political communication, the prime example of a cue is advice from others or endorsements. This can come from an expert, interest group, friend, or some other source, but by far the most discussed and studied cue is a party cue (e.g., Berelson et al., 1954; Bullock, 2011; Campbell et al., 1960; Downs, 1957; Druckman et al., 2013). Sniderman and Stiglitz (2012, p. 1) explain: “Fifty years of research backs up three claims. The majority of voters see themselves as Democrats or Republicans. The majority of them gave their loyalty to one party when they were young … the majority of them, instead of learning from the experiences of their lives, strengthen the bond of loyalty to their party. In short, the most important factor in the most important decision a citizen can make [politically] most often appears to be rooted in … loyalty to political parties.” Similarly, Bullock (2011, p. 496) states, “party identification powerfully shapes people’s views and … its effects are strongest among the best informed (Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002, chap. 8, Zaller 1992). … Collectively, these findings [on party identification] have helped to give rise to a common claim about the way democracy really works: Even when people know about important attributes of policies, they neglect that knowledge and mechanically adopt the positions of party leaders as their own.”

16. Gerber et al. (2010) also show that partisanship, at least for independents, is endogenous to electoral institutions.

17. Another issue that remains unclear is the reputations of parties: Are they accurate—that is, do people base or change their affiliations on accurate assessments (see Nicholson & Segura 2012)? Along similar lines, one could argue that parties are just one identity among many, and in many instances other identities such as gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status should trump partisan identity.

18. Overall, there is much still be done on understanding partisanship. For example, only recently Bullock (2011) offers an initial study exploring whether people do turn to substantive information when offered a partisan endorsement. He finds that party cues have an effect but do not overwhelm content. He concludes that “party cues are influential, but partisans … are generally affected at least as much—and sometimes much more—by exposure to substantial amounts of policy information” (2011, p. 512; also see Druckman et al., 2013).

19. Another question is whether or to what extent citizens treat parties like candidates. This is relevant because Tomz and Van Houweling (2012) show voters prefer ambiguous candidates and more importantly hold political actors to pledges even under shifting conditions: “Pledges can be powerful even when candidates sign them to please narrow constituencies, such as pressure groups. … By deterring politicians from responding to changing circumstances, including shifts in the preferences of the electorate, pledges can contribute to non-representative outcomes” (p. 35).

20. Indeed, on a conceptual level, Druckman et al. (2009) detail how the terms “heuristics,” “priming,” and “online processing/motivated reasoning” have been incorrectly imported into political psychology given the vast knowledge accumulated in psychology (and despite initially accurate introductions of the concepts by scholars such as Iyengar, Sniderman, Krosnick, Kuklinski, and Lodge). In the end, misuse generates inappropriate applications and misunderstandings.

21. Of course, the ideal unrealistic counterfactual is “would citizens make the same decision once they view the consequences of their opinion relative to what it would have been had they otherwise chosen?” This is time-wise and meta-physically impossible, however.

22. I follow much of the psychological literature on motivation by equating “motivation” with “goals.” With regard to motivation, the common focus, and implicitly my focus in the motivated reasoning discussion, is on two major categories: accuracy motivation (i.e., arrive at the “best” opinion given substantive information) and directional/defensive motivation (i.e., defend prior opinion regardless of information). Yet, the latter category encompasses a range of distinct motivations including defending prior opinions, various identities, impression motivation, or behavioral motivation (see Kunda, 2001). Moreover, it is likely that motivations interact, so people may partially seek accuracy and directional goals (e.g., Lodge & Taber, 2000; also see McGraw, 2003, p. 396). I do not delve into these mixes because for my purposes, a focus on movement towards forming an “accurate” preference is sufficient.

23. Of course, this should be read as a route for further investigation—to focus on motivation and unravel whether accuracy does in fact generate more deliberative thought or people aim to be accurate just to conform.

24. Indeed, one criterion sometimes proposed to assess quality opinions (that I did not mention above) is whether individuals engage in specific types of deliberation (e.g., Habermas, 1990; Plotke, 1997). I put this aside for three reasons. First, much of this work ignores the reality that politics is strategic, and this makes it at best an empirical non-starter. Disch (2011, pp. 104–106) notes this in stating “even those deliberative democrats who have criticized [the] Habermasian model [view preferences as] endogenous to politics in [an] idealized way: they are formed by practices of public reason to secure the independence and autonomy of citizens’ judgment” (Disch, 2011, pp. 104–105). She (2011, p. 106) continues that even the exceptions to this (e.g., Mansbridge, 2003) who acknowledge strategic possibilities end up retaining “a vestige of his [i.e., Habermas’s] urge to separate ‘communicative‘ from ‘strategic action.’” Second, Lupia (2002, p. 135) states that while “many people claim that deliberation can enhance civic competence,” the conditions to actually induce better opinions (e.g., being attentive, being persuaded by better arguments) are not met. Third, I opted to not risk confusing readers by discussing group discussion as a possible route to motivation and having that conflated with some formal requirement of deliberation as often posited by theorists.

25. The implications of motivation for value reliance remain unclear: “Although empirical research linking values and motivation is limited, many theorists [Rokeach, Schwartz] have proposed that this link should exist. … [This] needs more work” (Parks & Guay, 2009, p. 680).

26. I thank Lisa Disch for the insights of this paragraph, much of which she deserves credit for writing and editing.

27. One small aside: A recent cottage industry has developed to explore unequal responsiveness (e.g., Bartels, 2008; Enns & Wlezien, 2011). This shift in a conceptualization of responsiveness does not overcome but merely changes the nature of these inequalities. Instead of looking directly at to whom governors respond, the questions become inequality in access to information, mobilization (collective action), and so on (see Strolovitch, 2007).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James N. Druckman

James N. Druckman is Professor, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University.